


Mind and Iron, Human-Made

by m_oonbeam



Series: Metal Brains and Plastic Veins [1]
Category: Free!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Android Hazuki Nagisa, Androids, Foreshadowing, Government Conspiracy, M/M, Missing Persons, Nagisa being Nagisa, Panic Attacks, Robot/Human Relationships, Scientist Ryuugazaki Rei, Slow Burn, Three Laws of Robotics, android dehumanization
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2020-04-15
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:09:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,838
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21541132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m_oonbeam/pseuds/m_oonbeam
Summary: Deep breaths. Inhale. “State name and serial number,” Exhale, pray that the bot didn’t pick up on how shaky that was. Just remember the procedures for encountering an unknown android. No different from a calculator or a Nintendo DS, they can’t do anything that they’re not programmed to do.The robot groaned. “Do we have to always do this when an inspector comes in? I swear,you guysshould have to recite a fifteen-digit code by memory every other week, see how much you love your rules and regulations then.” It stuck its tongue out....In which two scientists, a journalist, and an amnesiac robot try to uncover a corporate conspiracy.
Relationships: Hazuki Nagisa & Matsuoka Rin & Nanase Haruka & Ryuugazaki Rei & Tachibana Makoto, Hazuki Nagisa/Ryuugazaki Rei, Matsuoka Rin & Ryuugazaki Rei
Series: Metal Brains and Plastic Veins [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1728094
Comments: 11
Kudos: 18





	1. Chapter 1

_“To you, a robot is a robot. Gears and metal; electricity and positrons.—Mind and iron! Human-made! If necessary, human-destroyed! But you haven’t worked with them, so you don’t know them. They’re a cleaner, better breed than we are.”_  
—Susan Calvin, Isaac Asimov's _I, Robot_  


* * *

“Fuck.”

Somewhere, deep, deep down, Rei startled. On the surface, though, he remained blank-faced and tired as he heard the quiet groan of the man next to him, head tipping over and onto the table with a wince-worthy  _ bang. _

“Fuck,” Rin said, again. The band keeping his tiny ponytail in place was slipping, just millimetres away from giving in and falling out of Rin’s hair. Rei fought the physical urge to just reach over and pull it out entirely. His fingers twitched in agony, as he watched the small elastic slowly, slowly edge towards the ends of Rin’s hair.

Rei pushed his glasses up, and fought back his seventy-sixth sigh. Thinking for a moment, he swept his glasses off entirely, neatly folding them onto the table in front of him, and magically hoped that he would suddenly see a solution.

Rin’s long, rich strands of hair lay wild across the documents, messy, yet not in the sexy way that Rin always went for.

(Don’t let his cool outward appearance fool you. Rei had been roommates with Rin for two years straight in college - that man spent an ungodly amount of time messing with his hair.

‘Course, if you asked Rin, Rei spent longer.)

“This isn’t the first wall we’ve hit,” Rei said, clinging to some illusion of composure. “We can just. Go back and rework some of the stuff we missed.”

Rin lifted his head, slicing Rei with his gaze. “We’ve gone through it all a hundred times,” Rin muttered darkly. “No fuckin’ use.”

Rin’s head gravitated back to the table, and he was still. Rei placed his glasses back on with practiced delicacy, and returned his attention to the numbers. It was pointless. Even he, who was known for his “excessive” use of formulas and calculations, felt as if his brain was oversaturated with dates and wages and invoices.

He considered giving up, just turning in for the night, buckling under his hazy vision and hazy mind. Yet, that was just leaving the problem to another day, wasn’t it? The documents wouldn’t suddenly have answers written on them in the morning.

He picked up his pen, and set about going over the figures again. Any hidden digit or strange purchase that would tell them something about the activities of Rockhopper Tech.

But the higher-ups were insanely good at covering their tracks. Not a number out of place, not a single suspicious or unwarranted business exchange.

Again, again, again. Every stale sum left a dusty taste on his tongue. They were stagnating. The case felt like an abused toothpaste tube, every last fragment of information had been squeezed out of every last clue.

It’s cold, Rei realized with a stomach-turning clarity. This is what they mean in detective novels when they say that every lead has gone cold.

He flicked a strand of Rin’s hair off the sheet and went over the numbers again. Combined running costs of all their labs, marked out in neat little figures, taken from sources such as electricity bills, pay slips, receipts, et cetera. All totals were roughly the same, with the exception of the occasional larger investment, roughly the same until… until.

“Rin,” he said, voice low and crackly from exhaustion and lack of use, “How have they been saving so much since September?”

Rin lifted his head, and squinted at Rei, before his eyes drifted down to the income statement that Rei was pointing at. He sighed, and propped his chin up with one graceful hand. “Old android lab,” he muttered, raking his free hand through knotted hair. “They shut it down sometime, August, probably.”

Rin glared flames into the document, while Rei rubbed at the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “Do you know  _ why _ they shut it down?”

“I think… something about opening a new lab somewhere else? Fuckers, they let a bunch of people go,” Rin huffed, removing his hand from his hairline, to dance his fingers across the tabletop.

“Have you checked it out?”

“Nah, it’ll just be a room fulla dusty old ‘droids,” Rin’s voice had an odd, flat quality to it. Tuneless, like the words  _ lolled _ out of his mouth. “No one’s been there for months.”

Rei pushed his glasses up almost roughly.  _ Almost. _ “Maybe we should investigate,” His hands twitched with something buzzing, something prickly, something between irritation and excitement.

“It’s not…” Rin trailed off, his fingers ceasing their jitter. “It’s a waste of time,”

“We’re not going anywhere at  _ this _ point,” Why was Rin being so strange about this? There was nothing,  _ nothing _ new to glean from the dry figures that they had spent so long slogging through.  _ This was a break in a cold case! _

“Check it out, then. There’ll be nothin’ there,” Flat. Tuneless.  _ Lolling. _

“I will,” Rei stood, joints popping and crackling at the sudden movement. He glanced around - head woolly and eyes exhaustion-dry - for his jacket.

_ “Now?”  _ Rin sat up properly, squinting at him through loose strands of hair.

“When else?  _ A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”  _ Rei unhooked his coat from where it hung, neat and colour-coordinated, among the others on the rack.

“What?” Rin scrunched up his face, like he’d bitten into a piece of mouldy bread.

“It’s Darwin. Basically, you only live once,” Slipping on his coat, he turned back to face Rin as he began buttoning it up, one by one.

“First of all, never say that again. Second, Christ, you’re turning into Ama-san,” Rin pushed his hair out of his eyes, blinking, as if to check that Rei really  _ hadn’t _ suddenly morphed into their office manager.

_ “You’re _ the one who insisted that I be the one to extract information from her!”

“‘Cause you’re both nerds. Also, take your damn coat off. It’s one in the morning, and last night you got like four hours of sleep.” Rin levelled his dark eyes on Rei.

“I’m fine. I’ve worked on less sleep before,” Rei shook his head, and resisted the urge to rub his eyes. Bringing up the four-hours-of-sleep matter did sort of weigh him down with the thought of just going to bed.

“Look down,”

Rei glanced downwards, vaguely puzzled, and nearly gasped like a swooning Victorian maiden. He had buttoned up his coat wrong. Each button was stuck a buttonhole higher than they were meant to be. He was a  _ mess. _

He looked helplessly at Rin, who simply raised one slim eyebrow. “Go. To. Bed.”

“F… Fine. I’ll go to bed.” Rei began unbuttoning his coat, feverish in his shame. “Clean up the papers when you’re done, the shelf with the false bottom is third down to the left.”

“Yeah, yeah, I remember,”

“I will be setting out for the laboratory early in the morning. Do you know the address?” He hadn’t even thought of that. Were they going to have to look for the address? Would it really be worth all the extra digging, if there really wasn’t anything in the lab?

But Rin just waved a hand, sitting back. “I’ll write it down for you, just go the fuck to bed,”

Rei sighed. “Alright, then. Goodnight, and you should probably go back to your own apartment at some point,”

“I can safely say that I will not be doing that. My apartment? Three blocks away. Your couch? Five feet. You’re a nerd, you should know that,”

“You’ve used the same insult twice in one conversation, which means that neither of us are functioning anymore. Once again, goodnight.”

Rin rested his elbows on the table, lowering his gaze to the income statement that they had been looking at earlier. “G’night,”

That night, Rei dreamt of numbers and quotas and missing faces.

* * *

The lab was going to be empty.

That was Rei’s first thought as he picked the lock on the front doors. Kou taught him how to, and he was far too afraid to ask her how  _ she _ knew that.

There was a murky, hazy darkness inside, but Rei knew that the lights wouldn’t work, anyway. There would be no reason to continue supplying electricity to what basically amounted to a shell of a building. And, turning on the lights to an abandoned lab would only draw unwanted attention, anyway.

The doors creaked as he opened them, a horrible guttural noise that sounded like the squawks of a dying bird. Rei shone the flashlight on his phone into the darkness, searching for  _ something. _

The opening room was long, he could tell. When he pointed the light inside, he couldn’t see it hitting the far wall. He got a glimpse of a couple of corners and sharp edges, likely furnishings, such as shelves and countertops. He turned his phone to the ground in front of him.

He clamped a hand over his mouth, and forced back a scream.

The sickly, pale little circle of his flashlight stabbed through the darkness and illuminated one distinct object.

An arm.

Tremors ran through Rei’s entire body, shaking the flashlight as he tried desperately to keep it focused on the severed limb in front of him.

Oh God. Oh God, oh God.

It was like something out of  _ Frankenstein. _

He wanted his quivering hand to move the flashlight, move around the room to whatever else may be waiting.

He pointed the light away from the arm for a moment, then froze, immediately swinging it back onto the arm. He hated it, the feeling that that arm was going to  _ move, _ crawl towards him like something out of a terrible horror movie. It was just an arm. Not even an arm, it was more likely a knot of metal and rubber and circuits that was fashioned to  _ look _ like an arm.

This was an android lab.

He jerked himself, forcefully  _ not _ looking at the horrible, grotesque, snake-like  _ thing _ on the floor, with its plastic veins and its pale little fingers.

He moved the shaky circle of light away from the lifeless limb on the floor and  _ oh God oh fucking Christ what the fuck. _

_ Bodies _ stared back at Rei, blank eyes and lolling heads and frozen smiles and missing limbs and, and, and…

Rei scrunched his eyes shut, phone teetering on the verge of slithering out of his wet hand. He could feel himself sweating all over, he noticed as he forced himself to take long, hoarse breaths, pinpricks of moisture springing up all over his rock-tense body. His inner-shirt clung to him like a second, soggy skin.

_ Not beautiful at all, _ his high-school voice taunted him. Back when he had been solely focused on aesthetics and grace and not “missing” friends or almost-humans grinning at him through the darkness.

Rei clung to his phone a little tighter, slick in his sweat-dampened hand, and counted to ten. Reluctantly, he slid his eyes open, and felt a ridiculous flush of relief upon seeing that the androids hadn’t moved.

Stupid, stupid, he thought to himself. They’re no different than the mannequins in a shopping centre. Creepy and harmless.

He nearly lost it again when his flashlight traced over a bot that was missing its eyes.

Don’t forget what you’re here for, he chanted to himself as he carefully avoided the sight of the limp figures. Figure out why this place was shut down. Figure out if it ties into the bigger picture.

And for the love of God, don’t look at that android, the one that was missing its skin.

He bent down to creak open one of the cabinets, shoving aside the dangling leg of a ‘droid that was propped up on the counter. Nope. Empty. He just touched that horrible floppy leg for no reason.

He tried another cabinet, then another. He tried a dozen shelves and cupboards and lockers, all bare but for the dust and cobwebs that signified the lack of upkeep. Not even a moth to keep him company.

His heart thudded painfully, clanging against his ribcage. The awful, awful flat eyes of the androids wouldn’t stop gazing at him, listless and still. It felt like the climax of one of those zombie movies that his brother watched; whenever he turned his back on one of the robots, his heart banged a beat of  _ oh God what if they’ve changed position when you turn back around. _ He was so tense that his shoulders nearly brushed his earlobes; some part of him, the silly, stupid part, expecting a cold, heavy hand to touch his back. To clutch at it in a terrifyingly strong grip, and unbreakable grip, and drag him backwards, into the darkness, where a horde of androids were waiting, eyes glassy and mouths forever trapped in those frozen smiles.

The hand never came.

Rei twisted around, so clumsy and sudden that he heard his spine crack, and the androids remained exactly as they were, empty statues in an empty lab.

This is why Rei should not be left alone to his thoughts for too long.

He released a harsh puff of breath into the thick air, full of dust and quivering with tension.

The androids could not physically move. They couldn’t because they were no different from a laptop or the phone in Rei’s hand. They couldn’t do anything they were not programmed to do.

Besides, many of them didn’t even have legs.

A hysterical cackle trembled inside of him, and he shook his head, forcing it down. He was going to go insane at this rate. Compose yourself, compose yourself.

There were doors opposite Rei, three of them. He remembered what he was here for, and pushed his glasses up from where they had slid down in sweaty face. God help him if his glasses fell and broke while he was in this place.

He glanced back at the front doors, the doors he had entered through, and felt a longing, so strong that it was beyond a pang and more akin to a  _ punch to the gut, _ to just leave. To run, run away from this place and run back to his own apartment. No, to Rin’s apartment. Rin, who was an actual human, raw flesh and blood and bone, who moved and blinked and smiled with his entire face.

_ Oh, _ how he wanted to run from this place, this ugly, dead place, away from the relics that were meant to look human but they  _ just weren’t quite. _

Rei pushed open the first door, moving even further away from the door to freedom, even deeper into the belly of the beast.

The door led to a smaller room, off the main one, lined with shelves and cabinets, all clear of any keys or documents that may lead them somewhere. Two android shells sat at the back of the room, the female-looking one leaning against the corner and the male slumped on top of the other. They stared at Rei with their unseeing gold eyes.

Rei is unfortunately reminded of a horror movie that his brother had once forced him to watch, the one with the hotel and the twins that stood in the hallway. He shuddered. Why had he watched that movie?

He checked in the couple of closed cupboards that were huddled in the other corner of the room, but the only thing he found was a lonely little paperclip.

Rei stilled.

You wouldn’t have a paperclip without paper to clip.

That meant, that at least at one point, this building held records and documents. Records and documents that may very well have been incriminating, considering that they had all been hurriedly removed, leaving behind a paperclip in their haste.

This was Cinderella’s glass slipper.

He left the room, and tried the second door, and found nothing.  _ Nothing. _ Not a robot, not a paperclip, not a dust bunny in sight. The place had been raked clean of any suspicious substance. He checked the shelves and the single metal closet without any real belief of finding anything.

A stench, stiff and acidic, touched his nostrils and reached down his throat, and he scrunched up his face involuntarily.

_ (Don’t do that, High-School Rei said. You’ll give yourself premature wrinkles.) _

It was the smell of sodium hypochlorite. Concentrated bleach.

Whomever had cleared this room had been  _ thorough. _ Rei doubted that if he dusted the place, he’d find half a fingerprint to work off of. This only aroused more suspicion. What the hell had they been doing in here that required a chemical dousing of the place before leaving it behind?

Rei pointed the flashlight towards the walls, gaze rolling over the blank plaster and slender pipes, only the barest hint of rust beginning to catch up with them. The beam flickered over the uniform paint, all bluish white and perfectly smooth. Perfectly smooth, except for some little black specks.

He paused, staring at the tiny pinpricks in the otherwise flawless wall. Four of them, forming a rectangle.

Rei stepped forward, and skimmed the pad of his thumb over one of the tiny dots. It was barely there, but he could feel it. An indentation.

A poster had hung here, held in place by use of pins. It had likely been taken down and put back up several times, judging by the unusually large holes made in the wall.

Hesitating for only a millisecond, Rei unlocked his phone and took the quickest picture he could, wincing at the quiet  _ click. _ No time for that photography course that he had taken in college to come into play here.

Another quick sweep of the room, in the empty hope that something may appear to him for the second time. As expected, nothing did.

Rei exited, and turned to the third and last door, feeling something heavy and pressing in his chest. This was his last chance. If there wasn’t anything in this room, this entire trip would have been one titanic, dangerous,  _ traumatizing _ waste of time.

There was nothing in the room.

Well, there was a single android, lying across the counter, face-up. He didn’t pause to linger on it for too long, having already seen enough androids today to last him for the next five decades. But aside from that, nothing in the room.

There was a large vent, the opposite wall to the android. It hovered just over a desk and chair, just big enough for someone to squeeze through.

Rei did. The vent cover came off easily, which did give Rei some hope, but once again, there was nothing but months-old dust. Or at least as far as Rei went, squeezing almost his entire body through, leaving only a foot to hook over the lip of the vent. The light of his flashlight bounced off the tinny metal walls of the vent and revealed nothing, nothing, nothing.

Rei pulled himself out, replaced the vent cover, and did everything he could to not slump in defeat.

There wasn’t anything hinting towards hidden papers, like the first room, nor was it  _ suspiciously _ bare, like the second room. Just a small, dusty room, with a small, dusty, forgotten android.

As he turned to leave, however, something plucked at the edge of his mind. There was something off about this room, something just…  _ slightly… _ different.

For a moment, Rei was stuck in limbo. Was it the shade of the walls? No, same cold almost-blue. The smell in the air? Not that either. So what…?

It was the android.

The robot, pretty small relative to the size of Rei, lay along the countertop. One arm was slung across its chest, while the other dangled off the edge, fingers only centimetres away from brushing the floor.

The first odd thing that struck Rei was that, if he hadn’t known any better, he’d say that the android had been placed there delicately, or even further,  _ caringly. _ Its plain, laboratory scrubs were gently smoothed out, its fair hair brushed out of its face.

The second, very, very relieving thing, was that its eyes were closed. As if to give some sort of sick illusion that it was napping. Sleeping peacefully, alone in this dark, dank lab.

Rei drew a little closer, only half a foot or so, out of pure curiosity. Who had closed the android’s eyes? He supposed that it was likely someone like him, unnerved by the flat gaze of an inactive robot. Oh, maybe this was another one that was missing its eyes. It was downright  _ haunting _ to look into the deep, dark skull-pits of an android with no eyes.

(Coraline, much?)

So, a part of Rei was relieved about not having to look into… whatever was behind those eyelids. Yet, another part was unsettled, right down to the marrow in his bones. Why, why, why did they have to make it look like it was sleeping?

A stone had settled in his stomach, though it wasn’t just due to the ‘sleeping’ android.

He hadn't found anything.

Rin was right. This entire thing had been a colossal waste of time and Rei's sanity. Rei had searched cupboards, shelves, closets, even vents, and not found a single thing. There was nowhere left to…

Wait.

The androids.

He'd searched every other nook and cranny, but he'd barely touched the androids. Almost every robot has at least one or two storage compartments, each of which could hold untold information.

If Rei could grow a pair and look for them.

He really had to do this, didn't he? Grope a bunch of androids in search of some clues. He was going to look and feel like a creep.

_ Who to start with? _ His mind taunted him, drawling and disbelieving.  _ The female one with six limbs? The one with the broken jaw and gaping mouth? Oh, oh, how about we get up close and personal with the android with the missing face—? _

Oh God. If he had to start somewhere. If he had to start somewhere, he might as well start with the android in this room.

He was closest to it. There would be no point, after all, to leave the room to snoop around the other androids, only to come back in here again. Also, it was the only android to have a room all to itself. Strange, now that Rei thought about it.  _ Surely this one must be particularly important, if they isolated it from the others, _ Rei reasoned.

(Its eyes were closed. That was the only reason that Rei could bring himself to come close enough to inspect it.)

So Rei exhaled. He lowered his flashlight back down onto the android, and  _ clump-clump-clumped _ across the dusty floor, squatting next to the counter. He skimmed all visible skin of the android with the flashlight, but couldn’t find any strange indentations or raised lines - marks that would indicate a latch or panel for storage - at first glance.

He was going to have to touch the thing.

On the surface level, Rei knew that this thing was just… an object. Just gears and circuits glued together, probably by some underpaid intern. Searching for information in this android was no different from searching through drawers and cupboards. It was all just empty metal.

Yet, the deeper, soft, irrational part of Rei was revolted at the idea of touching it. No matter how much he reassured himself that this was just a metal shell, its eyes were closed and it was  _ so very _ human-looking. Closed eyes equals unconsciousness equals don’t touch them, you pervert.

Gingerly, Rei poked the synthetic skin of its arm. It was soft and cold, an odd contradiction. It was so similar to human skin and yet… not. However, it was likely that the skin would heat up if the android were to be turned on.

Whoever had built this had been  _ meticulous. _

He knocked on the android’s stomach, collarbone, and forehead, listening for any odd, echoing metal noises, that may indicate a hollow chamber. Nothing, but Rei being amazed and a little horrified at the craftsmanship, the fleshy bit of  _ give _ that his knuckle felt where it came into contact with the skin.

Rei sat back on his heels, pondering to himself. If he were to install a compartment into a human being, or rather, something  _ resembling _ a human being, where would he put it?

Somewhere hidden, obviously. Or rather, somewhere that you wouldn’t think to look.

A quiet memory of the Ancient Greek myths that he used to love as a kid stirred in the back of his mind. Shuffling a little on his knees, he prodded at the thing’s calcaneal - also known as the Achilles - tendon. Nothing again.

What else? Somewhere easily covered up, he supposed. Somewhere hard to reach, especially if the android is active.

Somewhere covered by its hair.

Scooting back up to its head, he stared at the android’s fluffy mass of hair. Someone apparently got a little excited when designing the artificial hair. It really was thick, it would have made sense to perhaps hide something in there.

His eyes trailed over the blond shock for a moment, looking for strange lumps or irregularities in strand distribution. Problem was, the thing’s hair was so messy that it was impossible to find a pattern in the first place, nevermind exceptions to the pattern.

Rei nudged one particularly large knot in its hair, but his finger just got absorbed into the clump of hair. Hurriedly, he yanked it out, hot discomfort coiling in his gut.

His gaze glanced off the curls in disinterest, no different than the way the flashlight reflected off its fair hair. He skimmed the seemingly endless mane of hair, before it ended at the smooth nape of its neck, perfect and plastic… wait.

His eyes caught on a strange shape on, or rather  _ in, _ the android’s neck. On a person, he’d generally dismiss it as a misshapen vertebrate or some other medical business, however on a man-made robot, there was a good chance that it was there for a reason.

Rei reached forward, and pushed two fingers against the odd lump, almost missing it for the shaking of his hand. There was a little give, but definitely something firm under there. He pressed a little harder. Then, slicing through the dust and the air, there was a clean, distinctive,  _ click. _

Rei’s breath got lost somewhere between his mouth and his lungs. The sound echoed off the empty walls, bouncing and distorting and to Rei’s ears, unbearably loud. Hand still frozen to the android’s neck, he shook his head, heart stammering and muscles clenching. Compose yourself.

Then came a  _ whirring. _

No. 

No, no, no.

But it was already happening. The whirring noise grew slightly in volume, accompanied by the chirps and clicks of a reactivated machine. Its internal gears chittered together, clumsy and uneven. The sounds smoothened out into the soft breath of a fan.

_ The thing was waking up. _


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The android perked up, shoulders straightened and cheeks flushed, a tint so vastly different from the stony paleness it had worn just a minute before. Rei was taken aback - and frankly, a little uncomfortable - at the liveliness of the robot. Too bright, too fluid.
> 
> When Rei didn’t reply, the android scrunched up its face, leaning closer to Rei. Rei scooted backwards instinctively. “Aw, what’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?” It asked, swinging its legs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for some casual dehumanization. Humanoid is referred to as 'it'.

_The thing was waking up._

The artificial skin under Rei’s fingers grew warm, just the slightest bit. He wouldn’t even notice it for the fact that the warehouse hadn’t had heating in months and Rei’s fingers were ice. A vibration ran through its body, and Rei shuddered along with it.

Without thinking, Rei slid the flashlight from the nape of its neck, across its jaw, chin, mouth, nose - right up to its eyelids. Eyelids that were twitching.

He snatched his hand away from the thing’s neck in a snap of movement. The android crinkled its brow just a little bit - distantly, Rei was a little astonished at the detail put into its face - and squinted its eyes open.

It sat up. Rei’s heart stopped.

In a span of less than a second, hundreds of thoughts ran through his head. What was it going to do to him? Perhaps it would ask for a password or code in order to go any further, or alert the police about an intruder, or maybe, just maybe, it would attack him like in the films, grab him with terrifyingly strong hands and choke him to death while gazing into his soul with cold, blank eyes—

It rubbed its eye with a fist in a peculiarly childlike manner. “What’s going on?” Its voice came out thick, mumbling, as if on the verge of a yawn. “Who’re you?”

Rei opened his mouth without a plan on what he was going to say, and made a hopeless, choked sound. He was still crouched on the floor, gaping at the android.

“Why is it so dark in here? Are we going outside again?” It shook its head a little, as if trying to rid itself of… sleep? Robots don’t sleep.

Rei’s brain was working at approximately 25% speed, and what came out of his mouth made him want to beat himself over the head. “The uh… electricity doesn’t work,”

“Hm? Why?” It let its fist drop from its face into its lap. “A power outage? Oh! Did Momo-chan break the lightswitch again?!”

The android perked up, shoulders straightened and cheeks flushed, a tint so vastly different from the stony paleness it had worn just a minute before. Rei was taken aback - and frankly, a little uncomfortable - at the liveliness of the robot. Too bright, too fluid.

When Rei didn’t reply, the android scrunched up its face, leaning closer to Rei. Rei scooted backwards instinctively. “Aw, what’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?” It asked, swinging its legs.

Deep breaths. Inhale. “State name and serial number,” Exhale, pray the bot didn’t pick up on how shaky that was. Just remember the procedures for encountering an unknown android. No different from a calculator or a Nintendo DS, they can’t do anything that they’re not programmed to do.

The robot groaned. “Do we have to always do this when an inspector comes in? I swear, _you_ _guys_ should have to recite a fifteen-digit code by memory every other week, see how much you love your rules and regulations then.” It stuck its tongue out.

Something cold and _so, so_ heavy slithered down Rei’s spine and wound its way around his stomach. _“State name and serial number.”_ He repeated, words barely audible as he struggled to remain composed. He was clenching his jaw so hard, his teeth felt ready to shatter.

A sigh. “Hazuki Nagisa,” It drawled, tilting its head back. “Serial number 16-5-14-7-21-9-14-11-9-4. Jeez, that’s a mouthful every time. I’m so glad they give us nicknames, can you tell? Like imagine if every time Momo-chan wanted to show me one of his beetles, instead of being like, ‘Hey, Nagisa, check this out!’ he’d have to be like, ‘Hey, sixteen-five-fourteen—’ actually, you know what, I’m not bothered to say the entire number out loud again.”

Rei awkwardly waited for a gap in the conversation as Hazuki rambled on, unsure of where to interrupt. “Name of current supervisor?” He asked, standing up, and wincing at the abrupt cracks of his joints.

“It’s—” Hazuki’s voice started out steady and confident, as sure of himself as he has been for the past two minutes, and then tapered off abruptly, jarringly so.

“It’s…?” Rei prompted, the lead snake of distress in him beginning to wake up again.

Hazuki scrunched up his face, kicking his legs again as they hung over the edge of the table. “Hm, you know when you have a word stuck on the tip of your tongue?”

Something like frustration dug its claws into Rei’s shoulders. He opened his mouth, verging on ordering Hazuki to search his database for the name of the supervisor currently responsible for him, then stepped back, clacking his mouth closed.

Why would he need the name of his current supervisor? It was procedure to ask, for contact reasons; in case something went wrong with the android while in custody of someone who wasn’t familiar with the mechanics.

It wasn’t likely Hazuki even had a supervisor anymore. The facility had been shut down for months, all staff relocated to other laboratories. On paper, this place didn’t even exist anymore. Rockhopper Tech had tried to make its end as quiet as possible, the only indicator of an entire establishment being wiped off the map being a slight change in the flow of numbers on a single income statement. Nothing to indicate where the change in numbers had come from.

Distractedly, Rei wondered how Rin even knew about the abandoned lab.

Even if Hazuki did have a current supervisor he could report to, how would he even know who it was? All androids that were left in this lab were likely shut down before every employee was finished relocating. And _even if_ Hazuki somehow magically knew the name of his supervisor, it wasn’t like Rei could contact them and tell them he had broken into a deserted facility - he had a sneaking suspicion that even _knowing_ about the facility could very well get him into big trouble - and activated an old android that he most certainly did not have the authority to even touch.

“Helloooooo, Earth to Inspector-san? I’m sorry for not being able to think of the name, did you really get so upset that you moved onto the astral plane?” Hazuki leaned forward, teetering on flopping off the table and onto the floor. “Oh God, is this permanent? Have I technically killed you? Oh no, I bet you were a really nice guy. Maybe you had a wife and kids. Oh jeez, they’re all alone now, thanks to me. Wait, doesn’t that mean that I am legally required to take care of your children? I’m too young to be a father!”

Rei stared at him, baffled. “I’m not… dead. Why would you have to…?” He didn’t even know how to unpack the rest of that entire sentence. Breaking routine (despite the itchy feeling of _wrongness_ that came to him while doing it) Rei continued on to the next point. “Okay, moving on. What’s the current date and time?”

As Hazuki whirred into the silence for a couple of seconds, Rei wondered why he was even doing this. It was instinct to him to go through the procedure for meeting a rogue android. The steps had been drilled into him from his university days of robotics classes. They were designed to determine the stability of the android, and detect possible kinks in the coding. He wondered if he should just turn Hazuki off and check the other robots. But Hazuki was awake, and aware, which would make it far more difficult to turn him off.

“Hm… I don’t actually know the date. They put me under a while ago and you just woke me up there,” Hazuki knocked a fist against his temple, shrugging sheepishly. “Could you tell me?”

“It’s—”

A crashing sound shook the entire building, bouncing off the empty walls.

Or, not so empty anymore.

Booming shouts rang through the old lab, clanging and distorted through Rei's panicked hearing.

“Oh God,” he murmured (though a bystander may have said it came out as more of a _whimper)_ “Oh shit, oh fuck.”

It was very, very not-beautiful, in fact one may have called it ugly, to use such vulgar language. Unfortunately, self-consciousness had fled the building at this point to make room for self-preservation.

Hazuki looked confused, and just a tad nervous. “What's going on?” he whispered, craning his neck towards the door. “You still haven’t told me why we don't have power.”

Rei was too busy spiralling to listen. What if he got arrested? What if he _lost his job?_ That would be a stain on his flawless record _for the rest of his life._ He’d be known as the guy who got arrested and charged for breaking into a company warehouse and tampering with the robots. Oh _God,_ what if the company figured out he and Rin were onto them? They’d find a way to subtly _take them out_ for sure—

“You wanna get out of here before those people find us?” Hazuki interrupted, swinging his legs. “Those guys aren’t my usual crowd, and you look like your favourite show just got taken off the air.”

“I… what?” Rei gazed at him, taking in about 53% of what Hazuki just said.

“There’s a vent right behind you,” Hazuki pointed out, as the yells from the hall outside began to overtake his own voice. “Hurry!”

Rei turned automatically in obedience, stiff fingers hooking around the edges of the vent cover and yanking it off. He gazed into the darkness for a split second, trying to adjust to the sudden turn of events.

He felt a nudge between his shoulder blades. “Get _in!”_

So, Rei stuffed himself into a cold, clammy vent to escape from… presumably the police. Or Rockhopper security guards. Whoever was roaring in the hallway at the time.

Rei shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose with far less grace than usual, and turned back. He saw Hazuki hastily shoving the cover back over the vent, before, jarringly, dropping to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Whatever clanging sound that should have been made by this, was drowned out by the sound of the door to Hazuki’s room bursting open.

Rei fumbled to switch off his phone’s flashlight, sliding further backwards into the darkness of the vent, and praying to any and all higher powers. Voices filled the room outside, and Rei could see flashlights glinting behind the slits of the cover.

Conversation died down momentarily in Hazuki’s room, leaving only the sound of shuffling footsteps. This happened to be the exact moment that Rei’s back hit the vent wall.

A hollow _thump_ echoed through the vent, bouncing into the room outside.

Yells broke out from outside the vent, coming closer to the vent cover. Rei frantically felt behind him, wondering if he had reached a dead end, before realizing the open space to his left. He had hit a corner.

There was the distinct metal clanking of the cover being taken off, just as Rei frantically pulled himself to the side, out of direct view from the mouth of the vent.

There was the tinny, scraping, shuffling sound of someone crawling through the vent. Rei clamped his mouth shut and tensed every muscle in his body, willing his heart to beat softer and his thoughts to move slower.

The person - police, likely - came to a thumping stop, small, pin-prick flashlight wavering for a moment. Rei shut his eyes. He dug his fingers further into his knees.

“Clear!” The police officer yelled, echoing and distorted. The tell-tale rasping of them backing out of the vent got further away. Rei listened for the footsteps of the group to clear out of the room outside, and then melted. His head rested against the metal wall silently.

Or, at least it did, until he heard the front cover being removed again.

Rei pawed at his phone frantically, wondering what he had done to alert them again. He was considering moving further down the tunnel; on one hand, the shuffling would confirm to them that he was there, on the other, the risk ran very high that they were gonna find him anyway. Should he take the head-start?

He lay one hand on the tunnel floor behind him, preparing to brace himself to scramble away, but noticed something funny.

There was light coming through the vent towards him, bouncing off the metal of the walls, but it was off, different from the police flashlights he was accustomed to. Not a clean, bright white, concentrated into a single beam, but… a glow. A soft, golden haze drifting down the tunnel towards him.

Rei wondered momentarily if he was about to be abducted by aliens, because a human would have to be holding something like bedroom lamp to emit that kind of light as they moved.

“Psst, Inspector-san, I get the feeling you're not really government-sanctioned,” came a nearing voice.

Hazuki.

The android himself poked his head around the tunnel, peering at Rei with huge, slightly luminous eyes.

“You're… glowing,” Rei stuttered, nearly trailing off half-way through.

Perhaps Rei shouldn't have been so surprised, but Hazuki _was._ Strands of light wrapped up his arms and coursed through his body, vein-like in their interconnection. Hazuki's entire being pulsed with it, feeding even more into the illusion that the robot had life and breath.

Oddly, it was a nice light. Soft, calming to look at, the same way one gets entranced by the blue of a fish-tank. He was like a human-shaped lava lamp.

“I am!” Hazuki preened a little. “Wait, watch this,”

And then the gold roping across his figure shifted, changing into pink, and then purple, and blue, and back to gold.

“This one's my favourite,” Hazuki confessed to him. Rei just stared.

Okay. He was trapped in a vent tunnel with an anthropomorphic glow-stick and hiding from the police. This was fine.

“Can you please just tell me the way out?” Is what Rei said, starting to feel a little claustrophobic.

“Yep! Just keep going through the tunnel, it leads directly outside, and it's pretty easy to sneak away in the dark from there,” Hazuki leaned forward eagerly.

“Okay. Thank you.” Rei turned and began crawling deeper into the vent. 

He was interrupted by a thumping that was emanating from behind him. Rei glanced back, and his fears were confirmed. 

“Are you following me?”

“What else am I supposed to do?” Hazuki huffed, pushing hair out of his eyes with one hand and pulling himself forward with the other.

“Go back to the lab?” It wasn't intended to come out as a question. Rei needed to work on being more assertive.

An indignant yelp echoed off the tinny walls. “Would _you_ like to live in that manky old place?” Hazuki demanded. “It's all dusty and mouldy and the electricity doesn't even work!”

“Turn yourself off, then.”

To be fair, it wasn't the most logical of suggestions, and Rei probably should have thought that one out for a second longer. Hazuki only got more riled up, nearly banging his head against the top of the vent. “What kind of suggestion is that?!”

Rei sighed. “I apologize,” he hoped it sounded more convincing to Hazuki than it did to himself. “But why are you trailing me?”

“I already told you, I have nowhere else to _go.”_ Hazuki paused, and for a moment the only sound was the scraping of the two of them crawling through the tiny space. “And I want your help.”

Rei could now feel cold, clean air tipping against his face from somewhere ahead, and sped up. “With what?”

Hazuki didn't answer, only poking the sole of Rei's shoe with soft urges to _hurry up._

Rei knocked the outside cover of the vent off with little effort, and the two of them spilled onto the concrete of the back of the lab. The morning sky was still dark, an unfortunate symptom of the shortening days.

Rei didn't hesitate to scramble to his feet and brush himself off, but Hazuki lay sprawled on the hard ground a moment longer, glowing soft gold and staring at the sky.

“Huh,” he said. “It's been a while since I've been outside like this.”

“How long?” Rei asked distractedly, trying to scratch a smudge of grey muck off the sleeve of his coat.

“What date did you say it was?”

“Uh, November 6th.”

“Then… about…” Hazuki squinted at the sky and Rei wondered why it was taking a literal computer so long to do maths. “A year and a bit.”

And didn't _that_ make Rei feel a little bad. Would it kill these people to take their robots out for a walk every now and again?

“That's kind of…” he was going to say 'sad' but it seemed insensitive, even for Rei. He cleared his throat. “Should we go?”

“Definitely!” Hazuki sprung to his feet without warning, and Rei tried not to go into cardiac arrest. “Behind you, there's a little alley we can squeeze through without being seen from the building. Turn right after that, boom, we're on the main road.”

“How do you know all this?” Though, it would make sense an android would have memorised the floor plans of the building he lived in.

“I've snuck out once or twice,” Hazuki just grinned lopsidedly at Rei's horrified face.

“Okay,” he swallowed - trying not to think of the implications of a robot just being able to _escape_ like that, or he knew he wouldn't sleep for a week - and turned half-away. “Can you turn the light off, please?”

“Are you sure? I know from experience it's gonna be dark out here.”

“If _we_ can see where we’re going, the police will also be able to see,” Rei pinched the bridge of his nose.

A sigh. “Alright,” Hazuki conceded, dimming the dazzle surrounding him until it was only a quiet spark, and then gone completely, leaving Hazuki as a solid black outline against the grey of the surrounding buildings.

“Okay,” Rei pushed his glasses up, slipping his phone into his pocket. “Turn your night-vision on, and lead the way.”

Hazuki cocked his head. “I don’t have night-vision?”

“You don’t—?!” Rei wanted to slam his head into a wall. “Alright, I’ll lead, then.” How is he stuck with the one Rockhopper robot that hadn’t been built with night vision?

Rei placed his hand against the grimy wall, grimacing, and started forward, one hand outstretched in front of him and the other to the wall, feeling his way through the oily darkness. The wind blew stronger through this narrow alley, forced to condense itself from a vague breeze into an icy bite. Rei ducked his head into the collar of his coat.

“Are you cold?” Hazuki asked, and though Rei didn’t look back, he could sense the pair of eyes that were peering over his shoulder.

“No,” Rei replied, repressing a shiver with no small effort.

“You are!” One of Hazuki’s steps bounced oddly, almost like a skip. “Here, lemme help—”

“I don’t need you to—”

The buzzing background noise of Hazuki’s fan suddenly whirred harder, like a laptop trying to run a particularly difficult program. Something hot and hand-shaped pressed against Rei’s shoulder, warming him through his coat.

“I appreciate the offer, but—” Rei pulled his shoulder out of Hazuki’s reach— “you might want to keep the noise down a little.”

“Aw,” and Rei could picture Hazuki’s pout so clearly he may as well have seen it with his own two eyes, “I hardly ever get to use that trick!”

Rei didn't respond, his left hand grasping at empty air as they evidently reached the mouth of the alley. “You said to turn right?”

“Uh-huh,” Hazuki hummed thoughtfully behind him. “Stick close to the wall, and stay quiet,”

“Got it,” Rei lowered his voice to a whisper, and the two of them moved in silence, parallel to the building to their right.

Then the concrete under their feet morphed into clumps of grass, and the wall next to them fell away. Rei breathed a long, tense sigh, shoulders drooping and fingers unclenching.

“We should be okay now,” Hazuki's voice was an excited murmur as he hopped forward to walk next to Rei. “As I said earlier, I want your help with something.”

“Why should I help you?”

“Why were you in the lab just there?” Hazuki responded to Rei's question with his own. “I'm guessing it wasn't official business, if they sent security after you.”

Rei fell silent, avoiding Hazuki's eyes, pale and sparkling in the early-morning moonlight.

“You're probably from some rival robot-making company, right? Trying to scope out the competition?” Rei didn't correct him. The less Hazuki knew, the better. “We can help each other,”

“And what, exactly, is it that you want?” Really, what would a robot wish for? Money? Information? Hard drives?

“I mean, you must be pretty smart, if they sent you to be a secret agent,” Hazuki continued. “I need your help to find someone.”

Rei swallowed. “Who?”

Hazuki winked, flashing him a big, plastic robot-grin. “We can talk more when we get back to your secret base.”

“Secret… base…” Rei blinked at him. “You mean my apartment?”

“If that's what you're calling it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: roughly 1/3 of this chapter takes place in a vent.
> 
> i am going to TRY to update this thing regularly. i was planning pre-write the entire fic before i published the first chapter, but i rlly don't have that kind of patience. i've managed to do it once before, with another multichap of mine, but by god was it painful.
> 
> next chapter: rei finally calls nagisa by his first name (and some other stuff happens i guess).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Kou-san,” he sighed, rounding the corner to the kitchen. “Stop interrogating Nagisa-san.”
> 
> Kou was leaning forward, hands flat on the table in front of her, inches away from Nagisa's face. “I'm not interrogating him. We're having a conversation.”

Rin opened the apartment door, and, upon seeing Rei's glasses flashing in the half-hearted morning light, immediately relaxed.

“What took you so—” Rei could hear the exact moment that Rin caught sight of Hazuki, as he cut himself off with a strangled noise, like he was choking on his own tongue. “Why is…?”

Rei sighed and stepped over the threshold, into the apartment. Hazuki followed, watching Rin openly and curiously.

“This is an android I picked up from the lab,” Rei turned and gestured to Hazuki, who had switched to swivelling his head, taking in the entire apartment.

“What the fuck.” Rin closed the front door, not taking his eyes off Hazuki. “What the fuck.”

“I'm Nagisa,” Hazuki beamed holding out his hand. Rin just stared at it, something odd and cloudy in his eyes.

“I… sort of… accidentally activated him,” Rei scratched the back of his neck, ducking his head a little. The expected roasting from Rin never came.

Hazuki didn't drop his hand, and Rin still didn't take it. This was getting awkward.

“He said that he could give us information on Rockhopper Tech.” Rei continued, hoping to move the conversation on a little.

Rin's gaze moved from Hazuki's arm, to squinting at his face… suspiciously? Rei wasn't sure how to read the strange look on Rin's face.

“Who created you?” Rin asked, out of the blue. Perhaps even more curiously, Hazuki smiled wider at the question.

“That's exactly why I'm here right now!” He said happily, bouncing on his heels. ”I need your help to find the person who created me.”

“And they are…?” Rin pressed further.

“I don't know!”

“What do you mean you don't…?!” Rei pressed a hand to his forehead.

“I can't remember any names or faces of the humans who worked with me,” Hazuki tapped his temple sheepishly. “I figure they took bits and pieces out of my memory drive.”

“Why should we help you then?” Rei furrowed his brow. “It'll be a lot of work tracking down someone that we know nothing about, and you don't have much to offer in return.”

“That's where you're wrong!” Hazuki grinned that same grin from earlier, crooked and imperfect and odd on the face of an android. “I can't remember people, but I sure did pick up a lot of facts while I was there. Like, Isu-chan's creator lets her play his Gameboy while the supervisor isn't looking.”

“Oi, I thought you didn't remember the names of the people from the lab?” Rin's expression was definitely suspicious now.

“Isu-chan isn't a person,” Hazuki huffed, indignant at the scrutiny being placed on him. “She's an android, like me.”

“Why do you think they erased your memory?” Rei asked. He had his own thoughts on it, but Hazuki was their best lead for the moment.

“So that when people like you guys start snooping around, a bunch of the important info stays secret.” Hazuki smiled, and Rei honestly had to applaud whoever created him, because they were incredibly meticulous in the details. The narrowing of his eyes, the twitch of his eyebrows, the little quirk to his lips, all came together to create a near-human mischievous expression in its subtlety.

Rin blew strands of hair out of his eyes. “We help you find your creators, and in exchange, you tell us all you know about Rockhopper Tech. Got it?”

Hazuki nodded enthusiastically, then paused. “Oh, and one more condition,”

Rei and Rin tensed simultaneously.

“You guys still haven't told me your names.”

Rin rolled his eyes, and Rei just stared disbelievingly. “My name's Rin,” he stabbed a thumb in Rei's direction. “That one's Rei.”

Hazuki nodded, beaming. “And you guys have to call me Nagisa. That's my condition!”

There was a muttered “What else am I gonna call you?” from Rin's direction. Rei suppressed a groan.

“Okay,” Rei pulled out a chair from the kitchen table and sat down, steepling his fingers. “Tell us where we should begin.”

Hazuki - nope, Nagisa now - sat in the chair opposite him, cross-legged in a way that surely couldn't be comfortable. At least, for a human. “Here's what I know,” Nagisa leaned across the table. “They don't like androids.”

* * *

Rei tapped his index finger on the desk, willing himself not to glance at the clock. Across from him, Kisumi leaned from behind his monitor, giving Rei an amused look.

“Looking forward to lunch?” He asked, cheek bunching up as he shoved it onto his fist.

“Yes, I'm just… ah, waiting on a call,” Rei responded distractedly.

“A call, eh?” Kisumi grinned. “...From a special someone?” He cooed, then laughed as Rei reddened, stuttering.

“No! Not that kind of call, of course I would keep any… any  _ courting _ for outside of work hours,” Rei resisted the urge to hide behind his hands.

Kisumi snorted.  _ “Courting,” _ he repeated. “You're cute, Rei-kun.” He turned back to what he was doing on the computer, leaving Rei to flush harder and end up covering his face anyway.

Weakened in his embarrassed state, Rei looked to the clock to see that he only had six minutes until his lunch break. He busied himself with clicking through spreadsheets mindlessly until Kisumi got up from his seat, stretching.

“Me and Chigusa-san are going down to the store to get meat buns. Wanna come with?”

Rei declined politely, and waited a little longer for Kisumi to leave, before picking up his own lunch (arranged by colour; a habit from his high-school years) and slinking off, down the corridor that lead to the old files storage room.

Hardly anyone went down there anymore but Sasabe-san, the sole occupant. The door was keycode-locked, but Sasabe-san always forgot to listen for the click of the lock as he left, so it was easy to leave a card wedged, unnoticed, between the door and the frame, preventing it from closing just enough for it to remain unlocked.

Sasabe-san leaves for his lunch break every day at exactly 1.30, on the dot, so all Rei had to do was wait a couple of minutes. It was 1.34 by the time he pushed open the storage room door.

Binders, arranged in chronological order, stuffed the shelves, protruding in areas that were particularly tight. Rei skimmed their bindings, on which the subjects they recorded were hand-written in near illegible scribbles.

The physical records were meticulous up until around two years ago, when everyone switched to digital. However, Rei held the long-time suspicion that there may be more… incriminating records kept here under false labels.

Digital information could be copied and spread endlessly, never truly disappearing, but physical, especially paper, was far easier to erase if the situation called for it.

What he was looking for was folders dated back to around February of this year. That's when Nagisa said that the inspectors began showing up nearly every other week, acting funny, cold and harsh, speaking in sharp undertones into their little black flip-phones.

Rei reached the section labelled February of two years ago. There were about a dozen folders, blue and black and red, shorthand titles written along the bindings. He sighed, and pulled out the first one.

It was a collection of invoices that seemed legit from Rei's quick skim. He tried the second, and it was full of receipts. The third, company values. Fourth, contracts, fifth, resumes.

The monotony of searching allowed Rei to slip hazily into a memory, one that should have happened a hundred years in the past. It was actually a month and a couple of days ago.

Kisumi had tipped a couple of business forecasts onto his desk, harried, just as the rest of them were. On top of the worry for their missing colleague, they had to pick up his work in his absence as well.

_ “Throw these out for me, would you?” _ Kisumi had muttered, rubbing a hand through his hair and glancing away, down to where Amakata-sama was typing frantically on her keyboard.

Rei had just nodded and clutched the files in almost clawed fingers, exhausted from nights and nights of stressed, fitful sleep.

Kisumi shuffled away, and Rei had picked the papers up, ready to toss them into the recycling bin next to his knee, when a slip fluttered out.

He'd picked it up, and glanced briefly at the buzz of words, insatiable childhood curiosity burbling somewhere under his tired skin. Forecasted monthly employee wages.

His gaze had tumbled over the figures, lacking his usual enthusiasm for numbers, then it stopped.

He could tell, he could  _ tell, _ that something wasn't right. Something had niggled at him as he scanned the approximations of the wages of each employee. It was the same feeling he got back in high school when he just  _ knew _ that one of his homework calculations weren't correct.

Rei had stuffed the sheet into his pocket, and taken it home.

After two hearty cups of coffee and a power nap, the murk in Rei's head had lifted a little, allowing him to read the forecast properly.

Two minutes later, he'd dropped the paper to the table and called Rin with numb fingers.

Forecasting in a business is predicting future economic conditions on the basis of past and present information. It's taking a prospective view of actions likely to shape the turn of things in the foreseeable future. It's never 100% exact, so a business has to infer from known facts to keep it as accurate as possible.

This forecast was created in August, for September. On the 20th, one of the employees was only marked down for a half-day's worth of pay, and after that, no pay at all.

It was October 4th when Rei read it. Fifteen days since his colleague had disappeared over his lunch break, and then not been seen again.

Rei had whispered into the phone that Rin needed to come over  _ right now. _

Half an hour later, Rin came to the same conclusion that Rei had, white-faced and hands fisted.

Yamazaki Sousuke's disappearance had been planned.

_ Sousuke was kidnapped by Rockhopper Tech. _

It was a phrase that Rei often chanted to himself when his gaze faltered while scanning the fifteenth document of the day.

_ Sousuke was kidnapped by Rockhopper Tech. _

While slinking through dark corners and quietly slipping confidential files into his pockets.

While tiptoeing around metal shells and disembodied limbs in a months-abandoned android lab.

_ Sousuke was kidnapped by Rockhopper Tech. _

Rei whispered it to himself now, flicking through the sixth folder. It contained the billed running costs of each laboratory that Rockhopper owned.

Moments after opening the front cover, Rei saw that this file was dated for the February of  _ this year. _ Jackpot. Just as he had suspected.

It was a curious detail, but unfortunately not damning. Though the switch to digital had been strongly encouraged by management looking to cut down on ink and paper costs, many still preferred to be able to study the data with it physically in their hands.

Still, Rei would pay extra close attention to this one.

A few pages in, something jumped out at him. A break in the printed black and white monotony of the pages, there was a bright pink tab stuck onto the edge of the first page of Lab 3.

There was nothing written on it, but Rei took internal note.

Halfway through the binder, he found another tab, and his grip tightened.

Lab 16. That was where Nagisa was built. The pink tabs fell under even more scrutiny under Rei's stare.

There was one more, this time on Lab 21. Rei pinched it between his fingers, mind aching for answers at this sudden mystery.

Finally, there was a post-it, coloured that same garish pink, stuck to the inside back cover. It read:

LABS TO BE INVESTIGATED FOR CLOSURE: 3,  16 , 21. —MR

Rei barely had time to process this before the alarm on his phone went off, indicating that he had two minutes to get out before Sasabe-san returned from his lunch.

Rei silenced his phone and peeled the pink post-it off the binder and stuck it in his pocket, mind racing. He stuffed the folder back into the shelf, grabbed his lunch, and speed-walked out of there, heart in his mouth.

He reached the end of the corridor before he bumped into Sasabe.

“Looking for somewhere quiet, kid?” Sasabe asked, seemingly oblivious. “I can't relate, myself, but I can tell you that this old place is a good choice if you don't want to be interrupted.”

“Ah, you know me too well, Sasabe-san,” Rei nodded, trying not to sweat under his clothes. “Don't let me keep you.”

“Trust me, kid, the only thing keeping me from that dusty old broom closet is common sense,” Sasabe patted his shoulder kindly. “But I'd understand if you have more important things to be doing than chatting up an old man.”

They parted after Rei stuttered out a couple of polite farewells. He clutched his lunch, and resisted the urge to slip a hand into his pocket.

The little pink post-it burned.

* * *

Rei opened his front door to the sound of voices.

“Kou-san,” he sighed, rounding the corner to the kitchen. “Stop interrogating Nagisa-san.”

Kou was leaning forward, hands flat on the table in front of her, inches away from Nagisa's face. “I'm not interrogating him. We're having a conversation.”

“Is that so.” Rei pulled out the chair next to Kou's and all but deflated into it, leaning his head back for one moment before straightening himself. “Please sit down, Kou-san.”

She obliged with a dramatic slump of her shoulders. “Why did you tell him that we were a rival tech company? We aren’t, are we?”

“The less other people know about what we're doing, the better.”

“I'm right here, you know!” A hand waved in front of his eyes, and Rei glanced upwards to see Nagisa's frowning face, puffed-out and pouting. “It's not nice to exclude other people from the conversation.”

“Good evening, Nagisa-san.” Rei sighed.

_ “Thank _ you, Rei-chan!” Nagisa beamed. “And good evening to you too!”

“So, Rei-kun, what did you find in the old paper den?” Kou nudged his foot with her own, eyes gleaming. “It feels like forever since I've been down there.”

“That's because you're not allowed within 50 metres of the premises anymore.”

Kou waved that away. “Details. What did you find?”

Rei reached into his pocket and slid the post-it across the table, watching the others squint lightly as they deciphered the looped handwriting.

“Lab 16!” Nagisa leaned down so close to the note that his eyelashes were nearly brushing it. “Is that…?”

“That's where you were created,” Rei confirmed. “Kou-san, you shouldn't be on the phone!”

Kou just held up her finger in a  _ one second _ gesture. “Oniichan, get over here  _ right now.” _

Rei and Nagisa watched, enraptured, as she repeated her demand to a presumably-arguing Rin, before lowering the phone.

“He'll be over in a few,” she reassured to their baffled faces.

Sure enough, there were two sharp knocks on his door five minutes later. Rei opened it to a familiar scowl and narrowed eyes.

_ “What _ . Did you guys find that was so important?” Rei stepped aside to let him in.

“I found a post-it note in a folder from the old archive.” Rei explained as he lead Rin to the kitchen. “It had a short list of laboratories that the higher-ups wanted to shut down.”

“What does this have to do with me, or the rest of the case?”

“Well, first of all, Lab 16 is where I was built,” Nagisa piped up. “That already means it's important.”

“Aside from that, Oniichan, check this out.” Kou handed Rin the post-it. “Lab 21.”

“Lab 21,” Rin repeated. He was staring a hole through the pink paper.

“What's the big deal about Lab 21?” Nagisa huffed, bringing his legs up to curl underneath him on the chair.

“That's—I used to, fucking, I used to work there. Lab 21.” Rin's eyes never left the note. “But this doesn't make sense. Lab 21's still active.”

There was a light in his eyes, but it wasn't happy, or shiny, or glittery. It was an agitated gleam, jittering and unsteady, like a lightbulb's flicker before it explodes.

“What about Lab 3?” Rei pushed his glasses up. “Perhaps Lab 16 was the only one deemed worthy of closure.”

“Hey!”

“Lab 3 is closed, too.” Kou drummed her fingers on the table, brow furrowed and lips pursed.

“How in the hell do you know that? And don't say—”

“—My reliable sources.”

“I'm sure your connections are very trustworthy, Kou-san,” Rei began carefully. “But we can't always…”

“...trust them.” Rin finished, more bluntly than Rei would've preferred.

Kou rolled her eyes. “Okay, but this one is definitely telling the truth. I swear on—” she reached across the table and grabbed Nagisa's arm— “Nagisa-kun's life.”

“What?!”

“Fine, whatever.” Rin strode forward and hefted himself up onto the counter behind the kitchen table. “Lab 21 wasn't shut down. 3 and 16 were. Why do we care about this?”

“Well, it may give us an insight into the motivations of Rockhopper,” Rei's gaze fell to the post-it in Rin's hand, “If we can figure out what Lab 21 had that the other two didn't, and what differentiated the three of them from every other lab listed.”

“Oniichan and Nagisa-kun can both give us accounts from their labs, and we can compare and contrast,” Kou offered, sneaking a notepad and pen from the inside of her jacket in a way that she probably thought was subtle. “Rei-kun, you never worked in a lab, did you?”

Rei levelled his gaze to the floor. “Ah, no, I was relegated to the role of desk jockey near straight out of university,”

“Oh, memories,” Kou rested her chin in her hand. “The same thing happened to me, as you know, before I spread my wings and—”

“—got a restraining order from the main offices.” Rin crossed his arms.

“Why does everyone always insist on bringing that up?” Kou slumped backwards. “Anyway, getting back on track, Nagisa-kun, what was Lab 16 like?”

_ “Small,” _ Nagisa put his elbows on the tabletop. “I remember, there was my room, Momo-chan and Isu-chan's room, the main hall, and—”

Nagisa screwed up his face. Kou tapped her foot against his leg. “And?” She prompted.

“It's a bit fuzzy—” Nagisa smiled sheepishly— “But there was a room—in between mine and Momo-chan and Isu-chan's, that we never, ever allowed to go in. I think, I don't think the scientists were even allowed in there.”

“Who was?” Kou braced her hands on the table, leaning forward a millimeter at a time.

“One person was. I can't remember anything about them, but they used to spend ages and ages in there,” Nagisa rested his cheek in his hand, gazing off into space.

“I'm guessing we're not getting anything more specific than that?” Rin commented dryly from the shadow of Rei's cabinets.

“Be nice to the guy who got his memory wiped, Oniichan.”

“Can you tell us anything else about the day-to-day life in Lab 16?” Rei stepped forward and slid back into the seat next to Kou, facing Nagisa. “Why do you think the higher-ups wanted it shut down?”

Nagisa's eyelids tipped downwards, and he fixed his eyes on the table. “There wasn't a whole lot of staff. I couldn't give you exact numbers, but usually it was just a couple of people milling around, talking about boring stuff like circuits and coding and whatever else.” He paused, lifting his gaze to Rei and Kou. “Hm, I suppose it was a pretty small building, too. Just four rooms and three robots, including me. 'Course, I don't have much else to compare it to.”

“Oniichan, that's your cue to start talking,” Kou lifted her nose from where it was buried in the flip pad, scribbling notes.

“One moment, Kou-san,” Rei interjected. “Nagisa-san, you said that you, Isu-chan-san and Momo-chan-san were the only androids in the building. However, when I came in, there were bits and pieces of androids all over the place. It was rather… unnerving.”

Nagisa looked confused, but Rin scoffed from his place on the counter.

“It's obviously being used for storage space. Don't you hear some of the managers? Always going on and on about not having anywhere to put their spare android parts.” He bumped his heels against the bottom cabinets lightly. “Can I speak now?”

“Is that not what you were doing?” Came a mutter from beside Rei. Rin shot his sister a dirty look.

“Lab 21 wasn't much bigger than 16, from what I heard just there. About four robots, six rooms. One tiny-ass room for each scientist and their 'droid, one tool closet, and the entry hall. No mysterious lair that was off-limits to everyone.”

“Hmm,” Kou clicked her pen, frowning at the notes in front of her. “It's interesting, but there's not that much of a difference, compared to other labs. Unless Rockhopper is secretly in serious debt, there doesn't seem to be much of a reason to close down Lab 16.”

“Nagisa-san, what was your original purpose?” Rei asked, peering at the android in front of him. “Are you a companion bot, research assistant, teacher…?”

Nagisa shoved his palms into his eyes. “I don't remember,” he groaned, and all three humans sighed.

“Do you remember the other two androids’ functions?” Kou tightened her ponytail absently, gaze laser-focused on Nagisa's face.

“Yeah,” Nagisa mumbled, then brightened like a dimmer switch that was suddenly and violently set to high. “Yeah! I remember! Isu-chan is a companion, but she's very strong so she can also work as a gym trainer, and Momo-chan…” he furrowed his brow. “Momo-chan is meant to be a companion, too, I think, but he knows  _ wa-ay _ too much about beetles.”

“Hm,” Kou was silent for a moment, scanning her notes. “I mean, given the trend here, it's pretty likely that you're a companion bot too, Nagisa-kun,”

But Nagisa was already shaking his head before she was even finished the sentence. “I'm not a companion,” he said with solid certainty. “I don't know what I am, but I know that’s not it,”

“If you say so,” Kou darted a sentence or two across the page, then was still. “Oniichan, your turn. What kinda robots did you make?”

A beat of silence, then another. Rei glanced at Rin, to see him running a hand through his hair, staring at nothing.

“Rin-kun?” Rei prompted.

Rin didn't startle, but he did blink slowly, and turn his gaze to the three pairs of eyes on him. “Teachers,” he said at last, tone flat. “The androids created at Lab 21 were meant to be private tutors.”

The space between Kou's brows crinkled worriedly, but she didn't bring up Rin's sudden lifelessness. “Tutors are in far higher demand than companions,” she mumbled, tapping her pen against her teeth. “Any tech company worth their salt is making companion 'droids, but tutors? Only Rockhopper and a couple of serious rivals can make those even semi-decently,”

“There are plenty of companion bot labs, though.” Rei tapped his lip thoughtfully.

“That's only more reason to shut down Lab 16.” Kou flipped her notepad closed and rested her hand on the cover, fingers splayed.

“You make a good point, Kou-san.” Rei slid his glasses down and rubbed at the bridge of his nose tiredly. “Lab 16 may well have been shut down because of economic downturn.”

“What?” Nagisa stared at him dolefully.

Behind him, Rin thumped his heel against Rei's cabinets twice, gathering everyone's attention. “It's ten o'clock at night,” he growled. “This conversation has taught us nothing valuable against Rockhopper. Rei has some fucking post-it and Nagisa can't remember anything. Can we go home now?”

Rei said, “Rin-kun,” with a lilt of disapproval. Any and all information they could squeeze out of this case was of value, but Kou just sighed.

“As much as I hate to say it, Oniichan is right,” she murmured regretfully, slipping her flip pad and pen back into some secret compartment of her jacket. “We should wrap this up.”

And Kou was talking and Rin was answering sourly, but Nagisa was silent. Unnervingly silent, staring at the glossy wood of Rei's kitchen table.

Rei replayed his own words in his head.

_ Lab 16 may well have been shut down because of economic downturn. _

How anticlimactic would that be for Nagisa? To Rei, Lab 16 was just a creepy old abandoned building filled with cobwebs and phantom fingerprints of the past, but at one point, it was Nagisa's entire world. Where he was created, where he lived, where he lay as he was turned off for months on end.

Rei thought of the two pairs of blank gold eyes, the twin robots, slumped in the corner of a forgotten backroom of a forgotten building. 'Isu-chan' and 'Momo-chan', turned off, perhaps forever suspended in time, because a room full of stuffy men in suits didn't want to pay the running costs.

Nagisa was still quiet, not meeting anyone's gaze. Rei wondered how to comfort him. To pat his shoulder, or offer a cup of tea, or something.

Nagisa probably couldn't even drink tea. Rei turned away and rejoined the Matsuoka siblings' conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter took a while to come out. you can thank the flu for that.
> 
> is gou ooc? is she? am i basing her too much on her 50% off counterpart? probably.
> 
> next chapter: roommate shenanigans.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “If the government wants you dead, it won't be for eating expired butter.” Rei said. “Put those marshmallows back, Nagisa-san.”

After several staccatoed goodbyes and brief discussion of Kou's contact from Lab 3, the Matsuokas left, sleepy-eyed and rumpled.

Nagisa snapped back into his old self with a smile, open-mouthed and blinding. Logically, Rei knew that he couldn't be one hundred percent alright, but there wasn't anything, not a faltering lip or a dark glint in his eyes, to suggest that Nagisa was still upset.

Not a big surprise. Androids would have complete control over their facial features.

Nagisa bounced around Rei's kitchen, looking through cabinets and turning on taps like it was the first time he’d ever done it.

In doing so, he gave Rei a clear view of the way he moved.

Here's the thing: Rei had always assumed that androids would be elegant. Why wouldn't they be? They are human-shaped computers, smooth and flawless. Graceful, because that's what people should be.

Nagisa was not graceful.

He was like a huge rubber ball, darting around the place in flashes of blond hair and peering pink eyes. He smacked solidly into a doorway, then proceeded to get up and knock over one of the kitchen chairs.

He was like a puppy slobbering over a new toy, except that toy was Rei’s entire apartment.

It was all Rei could do to stand, a still, silent column in the centre of his kitchen, as Nagisa flitted in a strange orbit around him, peeping through vents and standing on chairs to reach the highest shelves.

“Rei-chan!” Rei's folded arms tightened at the childish honorific. “Rei-chan, who’s this?”

Nagisa was holding out one of the few photo frames Rei kept on display, on a high shelf next to a photograph of his brother and parents.

Rei shut his eyes. “I thought Kou-san already explained what we're doing here?”

“Gou-chan said something something about a conspiracy and business documents, but she mostly just asked me questions,” Nagisa responded.

Rei opened his eyes, and Nagisa had lowered the frame. “That’s Yamazaki Sousuke.” He bit out. “He was kidnapped by Rockhopper Tech.”

Nagisa made a soft noise of sadness, turning the photograph around to get a proper look at the man in it. “That’s why we’re trying to take down Rockhopper?”

Taking note of the ‘we’, Rei nodded. “They’re doing  _ something  _ behind the scenes. We’re trying to expose them for it,”

Nagisa suddenly stood a little straighter, meeting Rei’s eyes directly. “Well, I will gladly help Rei-chan and the others take down Rockhopper Tech if they’re doing evil!”

Strangely, Nagisa’s eyes glinted in determination. Rei didn’t know that robot eyes  _ could _ do that.

Soon after that, Nagisa seemed finished in exploring Rei’s apartment for the night, rubbing his eyes tiredly. (Rei would have to ask what he gathered energy from. Most androids were solar-powered, but there were some exceptions.)

“Rei-chan, where am I gonna sleep?” Nagisa poked him in the side, and Rei squeaked. Then wished he knew how to hack into an android’s memory file so that he could erase that noise from Nagisa’s memory.

“I wasn’t aware that androids need rest,” Rei hoped Nagisa didn’t notice the embarrassed red of his face.

“Eh, we don't really  _ need _ rest,” Nagisa poked his tongue out, thinking. “But what's the point of being awake when the rest of the world is asleep?”

“Do you know what time zones are, Nagisa-san?”

“Okay, okay, Mr. Smarty-pants!”

* * *

Nagisa ended up sleeping on Rei's couch, after Rei adamantly refused to share a bed with him, despite Nagisa’s best efforts.

Rei himself dropped into bed soon after completing his nightly hygiene routine, exhausted out of his mind. He’d been awake for nearing twenty or so hours by that point.

What felt like five minutes later, he was being shaken awake by someone with small hands and an urgent voice.

“Rei-chan! Rei-chan, wake up!”

Rei shot up into a sitting position, already grasping for his glasses on the nightstand. He glanced at Nagisa’s blurry face, dread coiling in his stomach. “What? What's going on?”

“Look! Look at this!” And Nagisa grabbed Rei, still stiff and creaky from sleep, by the hand and pulled him out of bed and into the adjacent sitting room.

Rei was pretty sure he muttered something unattractive, along the lines of “Muh-z-what?” as Nagisa pointed to the window behind the sofa.

“Rei-chan,” Nagisa turned to him seriously, brows drawn together. “The clouds are  _ pink.” _

“You woke me up at…” a slow, sticky blink. He didn’t know what time it was. “...Early in the morning. On a Saturday. To show me the clouds?”

“I opened my eyes, and the entire room was  _ golden,” _ Nagisa’s eyes were huge and wonder-filled. “Is that normal?”

Rei rubbed his forehead. “Nagisa-san, have you…?” He hesitated. “Have you never seen a sunrise before?”

“Well, no.” Nagisa stepped forward and knelt on the couch, bracing his hands on the windowsill. “I’ve only ever been able to sneak out at night-time. With the moon and the stars.”

He turned to look at Rei, round features warmed by the light of the dawn. It changed him, made him seem more… real, almost. Less like the cold, plastic body that Rei had found in an abandoned building.

“I’ve seen pictures, though!” Nagisa continued. “My creator used to show me photos from outside. And tell me stories. Rei-chan?”

“Ye-es?” Rei stifled a yawn halfway through.

“Are there really birds that are pink? Because they eat shrimp?”

“Shri—oh, you mean flamingos?”

_ “Flamingos,” _ Nagisa said reverently. “They really have pink feathers? They’re like, a real thing?”

“Have you never—? Here, give me one moment.” Rei retreated to the warm solitude of his bedroom, blinking away residual sleepiness as he picked his phone off his nightstand.

He unlocked it while shuffling back to the sitting room, where Nagisa's face had glued itself to the window glass.

“Would you like to see a picture of a flamingo?” Rei asked slowly, feeling a little ridiculous.

Nagisa pulled himself away from the glass so fast it may well have burned him. “Really?”

“Sure. Here,” Rei unlocked his phone and looked up  _ flamingos, _ tapping into the images. “These are flamingos.” He quietly wondered how his life had gotten to this point.

Nagisa was beside Rei in a second, craning his neck to get a good look at the phone screen. “Rei-chan,” he said breathlessly. “They’re so pretty!”

Rei looked at the screen again. He’d always known that flamingos existed, and hadn’t thought twice whenever he’d seen a picture of them, but seeing them now, he understood what Nagisa was talking about. If he tried to imagine that this was the first time he ever saw them, he’d be wonder-struck as well.

“Hm,” Nagisa looked up at Rei. “...Could you show me a giraffe, too?”

Rei obliged, typing it into the search bar.

“Oh my God, Rei-chan, look! Their necks are so lo-ong!” Nagisa was hanging off Rei’s arm, nose centimeters away from the screen. “Why are they so long? How do they swallow?”

“Their necks are long so they can eat the leaves off trees,” Rei said. “As for swallowing… I’m not sure.”

“Look at their weird stumpy horns… Horns!” Nagisa tightened his grip. “Rei-chan, look up deer as well!”

“Antlers are different from horns,” But Rei was already typing. “Should we sit down?” He had a feeling they might be there for a while.

Nagisa spent the entire time half-leaning into Rei’s lap to peer as deep as possible into the phone, as Rei looked up pictures of animals to show them to Nagisa. Rhinos, stick insects, bullfrogs, starfish, ducks, orangutans, the list went on.

Behind them, the sun pulled itself into the sky.

* * *

“We’re meeting up with Rin-kun tomorrow to discuss Rockhopper Tech and your creator,” Rei told the android that was currently raiding his kitchen. “Why are you looking at my fridge like that?”

“You don’t have the ingredients for pancakes,” Nagisa poked his head over the fridge door to give Rei the kicked-puppy eyes. “Rei-chan, how can you live like this?”

“I have oatmeal for breakfast, usually. It’s healthy, and provides plenty of energy for the coming day.” Rei paused, and looked back at Nagisa. “Can you even eat?”

Nagisa gasped, offended. “The  _ notion _ that my creator would be cruel enough to not give me the ability to eat? Ridiculous, Rei-chan!”

“I apologize. But why did you want to make pancakes, anyway? We have oatmeal,”

“Rei-chan, are you sure  _ I’m _ the robot here?” Nagisa closed the fridge with a disgusted frown. “It’s Saturday! Let’s go grocery shopping!”

Rei protested, but somehow he ended up standing in the first aisle of the grocery store, basket in hand, anyway.

“Okay. Okay, fine. We’ll get pancake ingredients,” he sighed, hooking the basket handle on his elbow so he could pinch the bridge of his nose. “But I’m doing my regular shopping today as well.”

“That’s fine with me!” Nagisa grinned, and laced his fingers through Rei’s free hand.

Wait.

“What are you doing?” Rei could feel himself burning red as he stared resolutely at a shelf full of soup cans.

“I’m holding your hand,”

“...Why?”

“So I don’t get lost. Duh, Rei-chan,” Nagisa squeezed his hand.

“Nagisa-san, this is a four-aisle store. The shelves are low enough for even you to see over them,”

“Was that a dig at my height?”

“Perhaps,” Rei picked up a can of peas. “I suppose you can’t help it if your creator was short on materials.”

“Jokes on you, Rei-chan,” Nagisa grabbed three sticks of butter. “I’m secure in my height. Your mind games won’t work on me.”

“We definitely do not need that much butter!”

“What if we run out?!”

“They’ll expire long before we run out!”

“Everyone knows expiration dates are just suggestions,” Nagisa scoffed, adding another stick of butter to his basket. “Don’t listen to what the producers say.”

“Nagisa-san, it’s a good thing you were built an android,” Rei examined the carton of milk in his hand. “You would have died a long time ago if you were human.”

“I would not! I would be enjoying my ‘out-of-date’ butter and knowing that it’s Me: 1, Corporations: 0,” Nagisa tossed a bag of marshmallows into his basket. “Wa-ait, am I gonna get taken out by the government for saying that?”

“If the government wants you dead, it won't be for eating expired butter.” Rei said. “Put those marshmallows back, Nagisa-san.”

They left the store with groceries, pancake ingredients, and two bags of marshmallows.

* * *

Pancakes were a  _ disaster. _

Flour spilled across the countertops, the floor, Nagisa’s hair, and Rei’s glasses. Nagisa shoved a huge spoonful of the liquid batter into his mouth, thinking it would be sweet, and nearly spit it across the kitchen. When is was Rei’s turn to fry the pancakes, he cooked them until they were perfectly gold on either side, but didn’t account for the fact that the insides were still raw, and  _ then _ Nagisa tried to flip the pancakes while they were still gooey.

Rei ate a small portion of pancakes with a dollop of jam, and Nagisa drenched his in a monstrous combination of maple syrup and sugar.

They tasted alright.

* * *

On Sunday morning, Rei wandered into the disaster-pancake-scented kitchen, fully dressed and ready to start the day. Thirty seconds in, he received a text from Rin.

_ can wemeet up right niw _

Strange. They had planned to talk this evening. What caused the sudden urgency?

_ That’s fine. Are we meeting at my apartment or yours? At what time? _

_ yuors. 15 mins _

Rei hesitated over the keyboard, fingertips millimetres away from grazing the screen. The battle between the desire to know the reason for the sudden meet-up and the logic that Rin would likely tell him when he got to the apartment waged behind his eyelids for a moment, and he shut the phone screen off.

“What’s wrong, Rei-chan?”

Rei jumped halfway up to the ceiling, and turned to see Nagisa cross-legged on one of the kitchen chairs, staring at him and chewing on  _ something. _

“Nagisa-san!” Rei yelped. How long had he been there? “Nothing is wrong!” 

“Uh-uh. You look upset about something. You look like Gou-chan when I didn’t know the answer to one of her questions,”

“There is nothing to be upset about.” Rei slipped his phone into his pocket. “Rin-kun is coming over this morning, as an aside.”

Nagisa jolted upwards so he was kneeling on the chair. “A-ha! So  _ that’s  _ why you look so constipated!” Ignoring Rei’s spluttering, he continued on, arms folded on the chair back. “Why do you look so nervous about it?”

Rei’s hand drifted towards his pocket. “Nothing is wrong.” He repeated. “I'm just thinking.”

“Hmm,” Nagisa stared intently at his face. “You're… worried about Rin-chan! No! You're wondering what to have for dinner! No—”

Rei held up a hand. “Rin-kun's acting strangely!” He interrupted Nagisa's tangent. “His texts aren't always… grammatically perfect, but these are practically incoherent.”

“Show me them,” Nagisa dropped the half-eaten bag of marshmallows on the kitchen table behind him.

Rei sighed, and obliged, pulling out and unlocking his phone to show Nagisa.

Nagisa suggested, “Eh, seems to me he’s drunk,” but Rei shook his head before he even finished saying the final word.

“No, Rin-kun hasn't drank since—” Sousuke disappeared. “—for a while. And he doesn't text like that while drunk.”

“Then what  _ is  _ drunk Rin-chan like?” Nagisa tossed Rei’s phone back to him. “Is he a loud drunk? Sloppy? Horny?”

“Nagisa-san!” Rei fumbled in catching his phone, nearly dropping it in the fluster. “I don’t see how that’s relevant to this discussion!”

“It’s curiosity!” Nagisa threw his hands into the air and puffed his cheeks out. “So I’m guessing the answer is horny?”

“Oh my—No! That is not the answer! It’s…” Rei sighed. He pulled out a bowl, and went to the cupboard to begin making his breakfast.

“It’s?”

The oatmeal box in his hands buckled under his grip. “He gets sort of sad, I suppose. Quiet, actually. When you’re at a party and you see Rin-kun staring into his drink like he wishes it’s a void that would swallow him whole, you know he’s under the influence,”

“Sad?  _ Quiet?” _ Nagisa’s eyes widened. “Rei-chan, are you sure this was Rin-chan you were seeing and not some secret third Matsuoka sibling?”

“I’ll elect not to respond to that,”

Nagisa gasped, and sat up straighter. “Does Rin-chan have some sort of tragic backstory, or something?”

“I believe that’s the sort of thing you should ask him yourself.” Rei said, pulling milk out of the fridge.

Right on cue, the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it!” Nagisa was up and throwing himself through the kitchen doorway in a second, Rei’s squawks about the danger of being  _ recognized  _ falling on deaf ears.

There was the distinct sound of the door being flung open, and Nagisa loudly greeting the person on the other side, whom Rei could assume from the lack of surprise, was Rin.

The two stepped into the kitchen a moment or two later, and Rei nearly took a step back. Rin looked  _ awful. _

Sheet-white and vibrating, Rin ran his hands through his hair for approximately the sixtieth time, judging by the state of it. His free hand was balled into a fist around his phone.

“You—are you alright, Rin-kun?” Rei asked, despite having never seen anyone so obviously less alright in his life.

“Rei,” Rin looked him dead in the eye. “This is bad.”

Rei pulled out a kitchen chair. “I think you should sit down,” he said, as gently as he could.

Rin stared at the open chair, before moving to lean against the wall adjacent to the countertops. He stared at his tapping feet, arms crossed and head bowed.

“Rin-chan?” Nagisa prompted, more mellow than Rei had ever heard him before.

There was another second or two of silence in the kitchen, strung tighter than a violin, before Rin lifted his head. “Mikoshiba,” he croaked. “is a fucking idiot.”

Rei sat down onto the unused chair. “Start from the beginning, please,”

Rin took a deep breath, and slid his eyelids half-shut. “On Friday night, I texted an old friend of mine.” He unfolded his arms and lay one hand against the wall behind him, tapping a single finger. “He used to work in Lab 16.”

Nagisa gasped, sliding into the seat opposite Rei.

“I asked him if we could meet up sometime, that I wanted to ask him about Lab 16. He called me, asked me why. I tried dodging the question a couple times, but eventually I just…” Rin leaned his head back. “I told him my job had me lookin’ around the old lab, and I found an android in it. That I wanted to know more.

“He got really, I don’t know, sorta quiet after that. He said he thought that all the Lab 16 androids had been taken away for scrap. Then he was just like, ‘I have to go,’ and hung up on me,”

Rei and Nagisa were silent, watching Rin’s twitching figure in the cold, early-morning light.

“I called him again today. This morning. His roommate picked up.” Rin’s voice was low and dark. “Mikoshiba hasn’t been seen since he grabbed his coat and left for somewhere unknown on Friday night. They’re—fuck—his family’s pretty close to filing a missing persons’ report.”

“...Friday night.” Rei repeated. “You don’t think…?”

Rin sighed. “I think he’s a fucking idiot,” he restated. “I think he went to Lab 16 all by his damn self, and since they nearly caught you breaking in—”

“—They must have tightened security.” Rei finished, blanching. “Oh God.”

“Yep.”

“But…” Rei wiped his palms on his pants. “If he’s in jail, wouldn’t he just… call someone for bail? A family member, perhaps?”

Rin ducked his head, and hunched his shoulders. “I don’t think they took him to jail,”

“You don’t—” Rei swallowed— “You think they took him to where… to wherever Sousuke-kun is?”

“I do.” The words came out bland and dry and Rin still didn't make eye contact.

Rei closed his mouth, then opened it, then closed it again.

In the silence, Nagisa's internal fan whirred.

“...Why?” For a moment, Rei didn't recognize the voice as his own. “Why on earth would he…?”

From the side, Nagisa broke the taut quietness of the kitchen. “Mikoshiba…” he muttered, confused. “Miko…—Sei-chan?”

Rin jolted.  _ “What?” _ he demanded, pushing himself off the wall. “What did you just say?”

But Nagisa didn’t seem to be paying attention. He touched a hand to his chin and frowned, searching for something invisible. “Sei… chan.”

“What are you trying to say, Nagisa-kun?” Rei feared an android malfunction, at the worst possible time.

“How the fuck…?” Rin sounded like he was having a human malfunction. “Nagisa.”

Nagisa lifted his head to look at him, uncharacteristically quiet.

“You  _ said _ you didn’t remember anyone from Lab 16,” Rin stated. “How the hell do you know Mikoshiba Seijuro?”

“Sei-chan was…” Nagisa’s eyes shone. “Sei-chan was—I remember! He was Isu-chan and Momo-chan’s creator!” He finished the sentence as if it were a revelation to himself.

“You remember?” Rei stood from his seat. “Nagisa-san, do you remember everyone from Lab 16?”

The air of the kitchen was too thick to move in and yet too thin to breathe as they all waited with bated breath, as Nagisa stared in utter concentration at the tiled floor.

“...No.”

Twin sighs flushed through the air, Rin’s (quite) a bit more impatient than Rei’s. “Then how in the hell do you remember Mikoshiba?” Rin crossed his arms, eyes sharp in the white lights of Rei’s kitchen.

Nagisa drew his legs up onto the chair and rested his chin on them, pouting. “I know Sei-chan. He used to ruffle Momo-chan and Isu-chan’s hair and tell them about the outside world and teach them swear words and… and they called him Nii-chan.”

“...And they called him Nii-chan.” Rin repeated blankly, then covered his face. “Oh, mother of fuck.”

“Nii-chan?” Rei frowned. “Why on earth…”

“Mikoshiba, you  _ stupid, dumbass, fucking idiot,” _ Rin hissed from behind his hands. “He broke in. Into secured private property. Lab 16. To get his stupid robots.”

“He must've had an… emotional connection to them.” Rei could practically  _ hear _ the notes that Kou would be scribbling down if she were there.

“He was like—” Nagisa made an odd, scrunched-up expression, as if he was trying to swallow, but couldn't. “Sei-chan was their big brother.”

“But…” Rei didn't even know where to start. A bond between human and android like that seemed absurd. It was like someone being overly attached to their car, or their oven.

“None of that matters right now.” They both jumped as Rin's abrasive voice, cracked with agitation, tore through the kitchen. “Mikoshiba is still  _ missing _ and we have no way of finding him.”

“I think,” Rei chose his words carefully. “I think it is fairly obvious that this Mikoshiba-san is wherever Sousuke-kun is. To find him, continuing on our current trail is the best bet.”

Rin didn't look surprised, but it still clearly wasn't the answer he wanted to hear. “What exactly  _ are _ our leads?”

Rei turned to the side. “Nagisa-san,” he said. “You said that you don’t remember anyone from Lab 16, but you know Mikoshiba-san. How?”

“I heard Sei-chan’s name,” Nagisa leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “Rin-chan said ‘Mikoshiba’ and I was like, ‘oh, that’s Sei-chan.’”

“So names can trigger your memory,” Rei pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “That’s a good thing for us. The information isn’t gone; it’s just locked away somewhere.”

“Why would they do that?” Rin asked. “Seems it’d be way easier to delete it than just, fuckin’, hide it behind a wall,”

“I… don’t know,” Rei’s voice dipped. “That’s the one of the biggest unknown variables here. We don’t know who altered Nagisa-san’s memory or what their motivations are,”

“Maybe they’re like us!” Nagisa piped up. “Maybe they let me keep some of my memory so I can help you guys take down Rockhopper!”

“Or it could be a  _ trap,” _ Rin ran a hand through his hair. “For anyone who tries to tamper with the androids. Next thing you know, Nagisa’s info leads us right to the lions’ den.”

“I don’t think that’s something we can…  _ afford _ to worry about,” Rei replied. “If we ignore Nagisa-san’s intel, we’re back at square one.”

“I’m very trustworthy!”

_ “Fine. _ Okay, fine, you’re right,” Rin ran another hand through his hair. “What do we  _ do _ with this information?”

“I’m going to go back to the file storage room tomorrow, and see if I can find a list of Lab 16 employees,” Rei said. “We’ll read them out to you, Nagisa-san, and you can tell us everything you know about each employee,”

“And…” Nagisa brightened. “And that means I’ll remember my creator as well!”

“That, too.”

“...I know some people,” Rin spoke up. “Acquaintances. They used to work for Rockhopper. Fell off the radar a while ago, but… I think they might have  _ something _ of use.”

Rei nodded, hope swelling. “That’s good. We have some solid leads, here,”

“We can meet back here tomorrow night.” Rin said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait between updates, i was busy watching potion seller 50 times in a row with no breaks in between.
> 
> you know that post that's like “i am a bright and colourful pinata and god is a 13 year old birthday boy whose parents have just announced their divorce.”? that's rin right now. somebody help him
> 
> is it still slow burn if the characters are holding hands by chapter 4? in this fic it is.
> 
> my tumblr is @brightwritesstuff !


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interacting with his coworkers was starting to become really, _really_ stressful.

Rei is a poor actor. 

He’d used his wits to weasel his way out of near every single school play, from elementary to the end of high school, except for  _ once. _ He was a background character in a play about love and tragedy and the like, and he spent his entire time onstage sweating in the glare of the spotlights and despairing over how un-beautiful his garish stage-makeup was. His one line was said stiffly and just a little broken in the middle as he stopped for a second to panic over whether or not he had forgotten the single sentence that he’d spent three weeks learning.

He can still feel the suffocation of looking out the darkened figures of the audience, feeling rather than seeing their gazes on him, and just freezing. Only for a second, but that little stutter in the middle of his line was enough to agonize him for years to come.

“Yo, Rei-kun,” Kisumi’s head appeared from behind his monitor. “Ama-sama wants to talk to you.”

“Hm?” Rei asked, a second before his brain processed the words. “Oh, yes, I have some reports that she wants me—”

Kisumi held up a hand, stopping Rei in his rush of words and neat gathering of files. “Why are you explaining yourself?” He leaned forward, a cheeky grin splitting his face. “Up to something?”

“I, uh, I—”

Kisumi leaned back behind his monitor. “I don't care, Rei-kun. You could be toppling the government and I wouldn't mind as long as you get those reports to Ama-sama before she slices us both open,”

“Of—of course, Kisumi-san,” Rei ducked his head, snatched the files, and fled the joint desk, red-cheeked in embarrassment and horror.

If he blew their entire coup because of his terrible, terrible acting skills, Rei would have to move to Poland and never speak to any of his friends or family again. If he wasn’t mysteriously ‘disappear’-ed beforehand.

Sometimes, he could still feel the beam of the spotlight.

He arrived at Amakata’s cluttered desk, clutching the reports in damp hands and privately wondering where one would have to go to get secret acting classes.

“Rei-kun,” Amakata greeted warmly. “With the reports. Thank you.”

“They weren't a problem,” Rei slipped the papers onto the little bit of space not occupied by other files, miscellaneous office supplies, or just trinkets in general.

“Oh, but that's not the reason I called you over,” Amakata waved a dismissive hand, and Rei could feel his heart start to pound like rolling thunder. “...I was just wondering if you wanted to join Sasabe-san and I for lunch.”

Rei's heart deflated like a mildly embarrassed balloon and he found himself stammering. “Ah, well, I'm sorry, but—”

Amakata's smile dimmed, and Rei's gut roiled like a pit of vipers. “It's fine, Rei-kun, but—if I may ask, are you alright?”

“Yes—yeah, of course," Rei blinked at her, forcing innocence. “Why do you ask?”

“You’ve been skipping out on lunch with us quite a lot recently,” Amakata explained. “I was… well, I was just wondering if everything was alright. Personally, I mean.”

Rei ducked his head as his face flushed with red and his heart flushed with gratitude. Her sympathy was misplaced, but well-intentioned. “Amakata-sama, I sincerely appreciate your concern, but I don’t, ah, need it. A friend… a friend of mine has been going through something recently, and I’ve just been helping him.”

Amakata blinked. “Oh. Well, if you ever  _ do  _ need assistance, you know who to call. I’m only a couple of feet away!”

“Thank you. I’ll keep that in mind. Is-Is that all?”

“Oh, one more thing!” Amakata pushed herself back from her desk with alarming speed, reaching down into her bag. “What do you think of this as a birthday present for Sasabe-san?”

It was a small, yellow book, with Leonardo da Vinci’s name printed across the cover. Rei frowned, struggling to connect Sasabe with an interest in historical artwork.

“Oh, yes, I’ve been on quite a Renaissance buzz recently, and I’m trying to recruit Sasabe-san to my cause. This thing holds  _ al-l-ll _ the gory secrets.” she flipped onto a random page, the new spine cracking in protest. “Lookie here! Did you know that Renaissance painters used to examine the bones and muscles of dead bodies to improve their anatomy skills?”

Rei felt a little queasy. “Are you… ah, are you one hundred percent sure Sasabe-san is interested in this?”

“I’ll admit, that one was a bit gruesome. But I can respect the dedication to their craft. And it produced the most  _ beautiful _ paintings.”

“...It did produce beautiful paintings.” Rei concurred.

Amakata beamed. “See, Rei-kun! Great minds think alike.” She slipped the book back into her bag. “Anyway, if you change your mind about lunch, we’ll be down at the ramen place.”

“Thank you for the offer, Amakata-sama.”

“That’s all. Thanks again for the reports!” she called to his retreating back.

Only once he was safely in his chair, hunched down so that he was out of eyesight from everyone at his back and blocked from Kisumi’s view by their monitors, did Rei relax. Oh, God.

Interacting with his coworkers was starting to become really,  _ really  _ stressful.

* * *

Rei’s knees were starting to hurt.

He’d been skimming through the files in Sasabe's office for over twenty minutes, and had found nothing of suspicion. No inexplicable post-its, or commentary from whoever  _ MR  _ was. Everything so far in the August section was dated to August of two years ago.

At this point, Rei was considering just looking for the digital files. This wasn’t the best option. Neither him, Rin, nor Kou had any skill in the area of hacking, and he seriously doubted Nagisa did, either. Where would he even begin to search? Sasabe’s computer? Amakata’s? The Cloud? Hypothetically, they could hire a hacker, but what then? Sneak them into the office?

Until one out of their tiny conspiracy group decided to take night classes for hacking, their best bet was physical files.

Rei pulled out another binder, black and unmarked, and something dropped onto his lap.

A piece of paper had slipped out of the binder. A small, bright pink post-it note.

_ to SH, remember NDAs for L21 EES. —MR _

Rei turned the note over. In tiny writing on the back corner of the post-it, read:

_ remember H. _

Before Rei could wonder about the initials and the shorthand, a voice from behind interrupted his thoughts.

“So  _ this  _ is where you’ve been sneaking off to,”

Rei went stone cold. 

He curled his fingers around the note.

A glance over his shoulder, and there was a silhouette against the hallway light. They flipped on the lightswitch.

“Amakata-sama,” he croaked. “It’s not—”

She held up a hand. “It’s okay.”

_ What? _

“You were looking for somewhere quiet, right?” Amakata dropped her hand. “It’s okay. I know you were just helping your friend. Phone call?”

“I—yes.” His knee brushed against the folder on the ground. He froze.

Amakata’s eyes followed the movement. “Oh.”

Rei tore his gaze away and stared resolutely at his knees as soft footsteps padded towards him, booming in the silent room. Amakata stopped right behind him and just stood there for a moment.

A hand dropped to his shoulder. Rei jumped.

“I guess it can’t be helped,” Amakata sighed.

Oh, God. Was she going to kill him?

“We all have our passions. For me, it’s historical figures, and you—” she crouched down next to him— “you’re a big numbers guy, right?”

“I’m… what?”

“I’d honestly be more surprised if I  _ didn’t _ catch you looking through the files,” she continued. “Storage rooms like these must be your weakness.”

...Had he just dodged a life-ruining bullet? A voice that sounded suspiciously like Rin’s erupted in his head.  _ Play along, stupid! _ “Y-You make me sound stuffy.”

“Maths is hard to make interesting,” she winked, and sobered suddenly. “Alas, I can't let you keep that binder. Protocol, rules, you know the drill.”

“Of… of course.” He scooped up the folder in his unclenched hand.

Amakata winked as she took it and slid it back onto the shelf. “Don’t make that face, I won’t report you for this. It’ll be our little secret, yes?”

Rei nodded mutely. His mind replayed the events of the past three minutes or so, reeling over his near-death experience.

“Oh, what did I come in here for?” Amakata stood up and turned, scanning the room. “Sasabe-san had to leave lunch early, unfortunately. Something came up.”

“Did—did he like his birthday gift?” Rei asked, forcing himself back to reality.

Amakata frowned, and her lips curled down at the corners the tiniest bit. “Not really,”

“Oh?” Rei blinked. Sure, the book didn’t seem much his style, but surely Sasabe was polite enough to refuse a present with grace?

“Mm hm. I probably should have guessed that he wasn’t much for it,” Amakata shrugged. “A little disappointing, but I’ll live.”

“Sorry to hear that, Amakata-sama,” Rei paused, curling the fingers of his open hand. “Ah, and… thank you. For not firing me.”

“All in a day’s work, Rei-kun.” she smiled. “Now, if I recall correctly, your lunch break is almost over. Make the most of it!”

“Yes, ma’am.” Rei scrambled to his feet and grabbed his lunch. He thanked her again as he slipped out the door, folded lunch in one hand, crumpled post-it in the other.

* * *

“How long til Rin-chan gets here?”

Rei dragged a hand over his face, completely emotionally drained. Every so often, his mind replayed one of the moments from earlier in the day, and his body would wrack with shudders at the thought of what  _ could  _ have happened. Amakata had come so  _ close. _ “No idea. He probably should’ve been here by now, though,”

Nagisa pouted, and swung his feet from where he was seated on the table. Why he chose to sit there, Rei couldn’t say, considering the couch was about six feet away.

“I would say that we should start listing off employee names—” Rei pushed up his glasses and avoided eye contact— “But. I failed in my endeavor today.”

Nagisa gasped, sliding off the table. “Rei-chan, what happened?!”

“I was in the filing room,” Rei said. “And I… was caught. Looking through the files.”

“And?!” Nagisa seemed very distressed. “Oh no, they didn’t do anything to you, did they?”

“I played it off. My manager misunderstood the situation, and promised not to tell anyone about it, but…” Rei’s shoulders slumped. “It was a failure. I could’ve jeopardized our entire operation.”

Nagisa sighed, looking strangely relieved. “Eh. Don’t worry about it,” He slipped over and thumped Rei on the back in a way that was probably meant to be reassuring. “At least they didn’t kidnap you, too, right?”

“But now we have no new leads, and I could be put under more scrutiny at work.” Rei shook his head. “I couldn’t even get a glance at the na—” Something occurred to him, and he dug around his pockets to find it.

“At the…?” Nagisa prompted curiously.

“I got this,” Rei managed, fishing out the pink post-it. “It slipped out of one of the binders.”

_ to SH, remember NDAs for L21 EES. —MR  
_ _ remember H. _

“MR!” Nagisa grabbed Rei’s arm excitedly. “MR! That’s the same person as before!”

“And now we have two new initials to add to the list.” Rei said. “SH and H.”

“We don’t know that H is a person, though,” Nagisa pointed out. “It could be, I dunno, a plan number? For if plans A, B, C, D, E, F, and G don’t work?”

Rei squinted at the short message. “Kou-san is better with short-hand than me. We’ll have to ask her at some point.”

“So it’s all one big waiting game?” Nagisa groaned, sagging against the kitchen wall. “We wait for Rin-chan, we wait for Gou-chan. Hey, let’s play… Never Have I Ever!”

“You’re an android who only left his lab for the first time three days ago. That’d be a bit unfair,”

“Oh, you’d be surprised.” Nagisa grumbled. “Fine… Truth or Dare!”

Rei sighed.  _ Why? _ “Alright, fine. Just… to pass the time until Rin-kun arrives.”

“Okie dokie, Rei-chan, truth or dare?”

“Truth.”

An immediate wail met his statement, but Rei held strong. Some embarrassing truths may be revealed during a game of Truth or Dare, but it was far preferable to whatever he may be and has been forced to do on a dare.

Nagisa stared at him disappointedly. Rei didn’t budge.

“Hmph. Alright, Rei-chan, who was your first kiss?”

“What are you, twelve?”

“Answer the question.”

Rei adjusted his glasses, and mumbled into the heel of his hand.

“I can’t he-ear you!” Nagisa leaned forward, frowning.

“It was! A boy in my middle school,” Rei grumbled, face hot. Nagisa gasped like this was the juiciest gossip he’d ever heard.

“Oh? And where is that boy now?” Nagisa bounced forward so that his nose was only a couple of inches from Rei’s. Rei took a step back.

“The nature of Truth or Dare is that you can only ask one of either per round,” Rei said. “Wait til next round, Nagisa-san.”

“Rei-chan is so mean!” Nagisa leaned back and slid down the wall like a sad slug.

Rei ignored his pouting, and continued. “Truth or Dare, Nagisa-san?”

“Hm-m… Dare.” Nagisa flung his arms outwards from his seat on the ground. “Dare!”

“I heard you the first time, thank you,” Rei sighed. “I dare you not to drink maple syrup straight out of the jug anymore.”

“Wha-at?! I don’t know what you’re talking about, Rei-chan!” Nagisa gaped up at him, eyes massive. “I mean, I’ve never even, not once in my life, drank maple syrup straight out of the jar! Not me!”

“This apartment is very small, and has thin walls,” Rei replied. “You’re not the most stealth-centric android ever made.”

Nagisa slumped, shoving his chin on top of his knees sadly. “One week,” he said. “I won’t do it for a week.”

“Two weeks,”

If possible, Nagisa’s expression turned even gloomier. “Deal.” Suddenly, his head shot up like a cat tracking prey, and he scrambled to his feet. _ “Truth or Dare, _ Rei-chan?”

“Truth,” Rei said, details on his first kiss already on the tip of his tongue. Not particularly  _ interesting _ details, considering he and the boy haven’t spoken since, but Nagisa didn’t need to know that.

“Why did you switch me on?”

Rei blinked, torn out of the neat explanation he had been writing in his head. “Huh? What do you mean?”

Nagisa grinned. “I was just wondering—back at the lab, why’d you switch me on in the first place? I could’ve called the cops if I was a less kind and amazing person,”

Rei snorted, then smothered his mouth and nose with his hand for such an ugly noise (Nagisa looked delighted). “I was, uh,” it came out muffled, so he unclasped his hand and tried again. “I was looking for clues about Sousuke-kun’s disappearance, and I came up short. There really wasn’t anything in the lab, so I started looking in the androids.”

Nagisa looked enthralled, as if this was a story he didn’t already know the end to.

“So, y’know, I looked over your body for compartment slots—” and didn’t Rei feel weird and nasty saying that directly to Nagisa’s face— “and, well. Flipping the switch was kind of an accident.”

Probably unconsciously, Nagisa’s hand drifted upwards to the nape of his neck. “It’s weird,” he said, face scrunching up. “I can’t remember being turned off. I just remember opening my eyes and there _ you _ were, looking like you’d just awoken Godzilla.”

“Can you blame me? I had no idea what I was getting myself into,” Rei replied dryly. “What’s the last thing you recall before waking up?”

“I can’t remember seeing or hearing anything, but… I think whoever wiped my drive left me with touch memories.” Nagisa said, tapping his chin. “I guess there’s not much we can do with that?”

“Tell me what you can recall, and we’ll figure it out from there,”

“Well, I was sitting down. Yeah, I was sitting on my table,” A small crease formed between Nagisa’s eyebrows. “I remember… oh. There were arms around me. Someone was hugging me, I think.”

The dots connected in Rei’s head. “And then they turned you off?”

“Yeah.”

Nagisa’s switch was located at the back of his neck. Unless someone could sneak up behind him, presumably difficult if he was in a room with only one entrance, the best way to reach the switch would be a hug.

Still, it… it sounded like a betrayal, in the softer part of Rei’s mind. To embrace a robot with the intention of turning them off.

Judging by the look on Nagisa’s face, it must have  _ felt _ like a betrayal, even if he couldn’t remember who it was that’d done it.

But Nagisa smiled, and tilted his head, gold hair flopping over his face. “Anyway, why was Rei-chan looking in my  _ neck _ for secret compartments?”

Rei sputtered for a moment, thrown off by the sudden subject and tone change. “It’s not like that’s the  _ first _ place I checked! Don’t you think it’s unusual for an android not to have any compartments for storage?”

Nagisa raised an eyebrow. “I just think Rei-chan’s bad at his job,”

“You—! What?”

“I do have a secret pocket, though!” Nagisa grabbed the hem of the shirt Kou had leant him and began to pull it off.

“Nagisa-san! What are you doing?!” Rei averted his eyes respectfully, wondering why on earth he invited this strange robot to stay in his home. Nagisa continued to struggle with the fabric, before casting it off, directly onto the floor.

“Rei-chan, you can look!” Nagisa was standing,  _ bare-chested, _ in Rei’s kitchen. “Check this out!”

And then he proceeded to dig his fingers into the flesh of his chest.

Rei yelped, horrified for a moment, before he remembered that Nagisa was a synthetic being and did not, in fact, have flesh.

It was still a bit disconcerting when he swung open a panel right above where his heart  _ would _ be if he were human. It revealed a dark cavity, a look directly into the hollow of his faux-ribcage.

But not  _ entirely  _ hollow. “There’s something in there.” Rei said.

“Oh?” Nagisa swung his head downwards, chin pressing into his collarbone. “I can’t see!”

“Here, there’s definitely—” Rei fumbled with his phone to turn the flashlight on— “there’s something… white. In there.”

He shone the light into Nagisa’s chest, illuminating the oddly-shaped object within. There were several wires connected to it, and as he angled and re-angled the torchlight, the thing almost looked like...

“A heart.” Rei looked up at Nagisa, who was wearing an equally puzzled expression. “There’s something in there that’s shaped like a human heart.”

“Huh?” Nagisa reached into his chest, and began tugging on the object.

“Wait!” Rei’s hand shot out to grab Nagisa’s wrist, panic spiking. “It’s connected to you through some wires. We don’t know what pulling it out will do.”

“Aw, is Rei-chan worried for me?” Nagisa teased, but retracted his hand anyway. “Whad’ya think it is?”

“Some form of storage, likely.” Rei pushed up his glasses. “Perhaps a back-up battery, for situations with no access to… what’s your power source?”

“Um, solar is supposed to be my main source,” Nagisa scratched the back of his head. “But I was indoors most of the time back at the lab, so I mostly got my energy from food.”

“You can digest food like a human?”

“Yeah! Except, not to flex, but my digestive tract is way-y more efficient than yours, so I never have to go to the bathroom.” Nagisa literally flexed his biceps.

Rei rolled his eyes. “Ok-ay, anyway,” he squinted into the cavern of Nagisa’s chest. “It could also be a place to store RAM. What do you think?”

“You said it’s shaped like a heart, right?” At Rei’s nod, Nagisa continued. “I’m guessing it has something to do with memory, then. Because, like, emotions, feelings, y’know?”

“One could also argue that the heart  _ powers _ the body by circulating blood, and thus they would make a back-up generator in the shape of a heart,” Rei pointed out.

“You’re so cynical,” Nagisa crossed his arms, low on his body to avoid disrupting the gaping chasm in his ribcage.

“That’s irrelevant,” Rei lowered the flashlight.  _ “Anyway, _ there’s no way of knowing for certain what it does without being able to inspect it. And  _ that _ is too risky because we don’t know what detaching it from you might do.”

“You think it might reset me and turn me into a zombie?” Nagisa held out his arms in front of him like a cartoon zombie.  _ “Bra-a-ains…” _

“Are you done?”

Just as he said (sighed) those words, Rei’s phone vibrated in his hand. Just once.

“Oh—it’s from Rin-kun!” Rei scrabbled to unlock his phone.

Nagisa whooped, and slapped his chest-chamber shut, moving around to peer over Rei’s shoulder.

_ we figured out that lab 16 was being used to store unused androids, right? _

_ Yes. Where are you? Are you coming to my apartment tonight? _

_ thanks. _

Rei stared at his phone screen as Rin left the conversation. Nagisa made a concerned noise behind him. “Is Rin-chan okay?”

Rei swallowed as he dropped his phone into his pocket. “I don’t know,” the words came out hoarser than he intended, but his gut was swirling too fiercely for him to feel embarrassed about the ugliness of it. “I… have a bad feeling.”

Rei was a scientist, even if he was currently relegated to office work. He’s supposed to work with facts and logic, not gut instincts. But suddenly it was like some dark, unknowable shadow was pressing down on his shoulders, and Rei pulled his phone back out of his pocket.

“Rei-chan, are you alright?” Nagisa’s worried face was ignored as Rei tried dialling Rin’s number. The mood of the room had plummeted, so tense it was barely breathable.

No answer. Deep down, he wasn’t really expecting one. “I think Rin’s about to do something. I don’t like this.”

“You know where Rin-chan’s apartment is, right?” Nagisa touched his hand to Rei’s shoulder, surprisingly and uncharacteristically serious. “We can go there and ask him what he’s doing.”

Phone gripped in hand, stomach bubbling darkly, Rei nodded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the late update, i was busy memorizing the video 'i'm at soup' line-by-line.
> 
> we've reached the point where chrome crashes if i keep this fic's google doc open for too long. i'm gonna have to start new one soon.
> 
> can't remember if i've said this before, but this fic is pretty obviously inspired by the reigisa mook. the whole chest-compartment thing is an homage to that.
> 
> we're nearing the end of part 1, maybe 2 chapters left? things are gonna start picking up. i've got most of the next chapter written, but i don't wanna jinx it by saying when it's gonna be out :0
> 
> next chapter: we find out why Rin never showed up to Rei's apartment.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What are you doing?” At this, Nagisa pulled away, squinting in thought as he stared at Rei.
> 
> “That’s called a hug, Rei-chan.”

With each step the two took down the street on their way to Rin’s apartment, Rei’s shoulders grew tenser. Rin’s clipped texts replayed over and over again in his head, like an unbearably catchy song. But instead of mild irritation, Rei’s stomach buzzed with a sense of impending doom.

Why? Why on earth did Rin want to know about the discarded robots in Lab 16?

Eyes on the pavement, he was so engrossed in his own stress, he didn’t notice Nagisa starting to whir harder next to him.

Something warm enclosed his hand.

Rei jumped, and looked over to see Nagisa’s hand, artificially heated up, wrapped around his own.

“Rei-chan,” Nagisa called, staring at him. ...Not staring. Watching. “You’re going to fuss yourself into a coma.”

“I-I’m.” Rei swallowed. Tongue loosened with anxiety, he said, “I don’t want to lose another friend.”

Nagisa stopped entirely. “We’re not going to lose Rin-chan!” He frowned and clenched his unused hand. “For all we know, he could be napping in his apartment right now!”

Rei stared at him.

Nagisa didn’t look angry, but… frustrated. And upset. “Don’t tell me you’ve already given up on Sousuke-chan?!”

And scared.

Nagisa continued to look at him with massive, colourful eyes, awaiting an answer.

“...No.” It came out quieter than Rei intended. “No, I do still think Sousuke-kun is still alive. If they wanted him dead, they could’ve just faked an accident.” It was the same reasoning he’d been using to reassure himself since day one.

“Exactly!” Nagisa squeezed his hand. “Sousuke-chan and Sei-chan can’t afford to have us give up on them, and… and if Rin-chan isn’t at his apartment, we can’t give up on him, either.”

With that, Nagisa began dragging him forward by their linked hands, pace more hurried than it was before.

His grip on Rei’s hand never faltered, and Rei wondered if it was meant to comfort Nagisa as much as it was Rei.

Rin didn’t answer his door.

Nagisa knocked. A lot. Loudly. There wasn’t so much as a sharp-voiced remark from behind the door to  _ calm your tits, Jesus, I’m coming. _

The awful, awful feeling in Rei’s throat and chest bloated.

“Rin-kun gave me a spare key a while ago,” he said, beginning to rummage through his coat pockets. “Just give me a—”

“No need!” Nagisa said. His cheer seemed just a little off, but Rei couldn’t identify what exactly was wrong with it. Nagisa leaned down to inspect the door. “Isu-chan taught me how to pick locks!”

“Nagisa-san, that’s not—”

“Just one sec…” Nagisa reached up and pulled a bobby pin out of his hair.

“Wha—Where did you even get that?” Rei hadn’t noticed the pin being there in the first place. Nagisa just… had so much hair.

“I asked Gou-chan if I could borrow one of hers, and she let me.” Nagisa stuck the pin into the lock and began wiggling it around. “She even let me keep it as long as I taught  _ her _ how to pick locks.”

Rei shuddered. “Please, don’t.”

“A deal’s a deal, Rei-chan,” The lock clicked, and Rin’s front door creaked open a sliver. “Done!”

Stepping in, the apartment was still and silent. “Rin-kun?” Rei called. “Rin?”

No answer. Nagisa flipped on the lights.

There was nothing…  _ wrong _ with the apartment. It was the same as every other time Rei had visited it, with the exception of Rin’s absence. It was just… empty.

“We should split up,” Nagisa suggested. “Cover more ground!”

“Rin-kun’s apartment isn’t that big,” Rei replied, but it was distant, vague. Rin wasn’t there. That swallowed up most of his thoughts.

Nagisa ventured forward, in the direction of the kitchen. “Just because Rin-chan’s not at his apartment doesn’t mean something awful has happened. He could be taking a walk, or…” he trailed off.

“Or?” Rei prompted, frowning at Nagisa’s silence.

“Rei-chan.” Came a nervous voice from the kitchen. “Come look at this.”

Oh, God. Rei picked up his pace, heart hammering. “What is it?”

He opened the kitchen door, to see Nagisa staring at something on the counter. A sheet of paper. “It’s a note from Rin-chan.”

Rei walked over, and picked up the note with slightly-trembling hands. It was only a short few lines, in Rin’s characteristic scrawl.

_ Rei, _

_ So, Mikoshiba got got trying to get to his stupid fucking robots. It made me think. A lot. _

_ They’re storing unused androids in Lab 16. I thought all shut-down robots were recycled into something or another, but not all of them. Some of them just sit there in stasis. Forever. That’s fucked up. _

_ So. Either I’m going to be back by tonight, or the same thing’s gonna happen to me as Mikoshiba. Whichever. I gotta do this. _

_ I’ve been trying to track down those old friends who used to work at Rockhopper. Here’s the latest address I could find: 3038-289, Shirahama, Nishimuro District, Wakayama 749-3311. If I can’t come with you, tell them I sent you. _

_ Rin. _

_ (PS get my sister to arrange a meeting with her damn informant. I know they know more than they let on. Also tell her not to worry, they’re not gonna kill me. _

_ Burn this note when you’re done with it.) _

Rei dropped the note. “Oh my God.” He put his head in his hands. “Oh my God.”

Nagisa stood next to him, and said nothing.

* * *

Rei called Gou and explained what he’d found. She was quiet for a long stretch of moments.

(He’d debated waiting to tell her in person, but decided that she’d probably rather he tell her sooner than later.)

Eventually, she just sighed. “That dumbass,” she muttered, voice strained. “He really… that dumbass.”

“Gou—Kou-san,” Rei began. “Are you… alright?”

“I’ll be fine when this whole mess is over and done with,” Gou huffed. “Have you burned the note yet?”

“Not yet.” Rei pulled it from his pocket and unfolded it from the neat square. “Here—could you write this address down, please?”

There was a rustling as Gou presumably pulled out a pen and paper. “Sure,”

Rei read the address out to her quietly, as Nagisa watched Rin’s front door anxiously. They had no idea who might come barging through at any moment, be it best case scenario (Rin himself) or worst (Rockhopper security).

“Huh,” Gou said, exhale crackling through the phone. “This address is pretty far away. Somewhere along the southern coasts, I think.”

“Do you know who it might belong to?” Rei asked. “Or, do you have any guesses?”

“Honestly, I have no idea,” Gou confessed. “Oniichan’s had a bunch of acquaintances over the years. Some of them worked for Rockhopper, some of them didn’t, some of them were his friends, some weren’t, some I didn’t even hear about until Oniichan wasn’t speaking to them anymore.”

“So, it doesn’t exactly narrow it down.”

“Yeah,” Gou sighed again. “Listen, about my Lab 3 source…”

Rei waited as she seemed to gather her thoughts.

“I’ll ask her if she’s willing to meet up with you guys,” Gou said. “She… she’s shy, I guess. It’s understandable when you hear about what she’s gone through. She’s especially nervous around anyone associated with Rockhopper.”

“How did you get her to open up to you, then, Gou-san?”

“That’s a journalist technique I’m afraid I can’t tell you, Rei-kun,” He could almost  _ hear _ Gou winking through the phone. Then she sobered. “Okay, I’ll see if I can convince her, but no promises. Call you tomorrow.”

Rei said his goodbyes, then pocketed his phone, turning to Nagisa, who was still leaning against the kitchen counter, watching the door like a hawk.

“Gou-san said she’d see about the informant,” Rei told him. “Come on, let’s go home.”

“But what if Rin-chan comes back?” Nagisa turned to look up at Rei, distressed.

Rei placed an awkward hand on his shoulder, heart twisting in his chest. “Nagisa-san, I…” Shakily, he adjusted his glasses. “I don’t think…”

A pair of arms threw themselves around him, and Rei jumped. Nagisa buried his face into Rei’s shoulder, squeezing him. “It’s okay, Rei-chan.” He said. “We’re gonna find him  _ no matter what. _ No matter what!”

Rei stared down at him.  _ Rin’s gone. _ Rin has disappeared for an indefinite amount of time. They don’t know where Rin is or if he’s safe.

Slowly, uncertainly, Rei returns the hug. Nagisa is warm.

_ We’re gonna find him no matter what. _

Rei wraps his arms tighter around Nagisa. He doesn’t cry.

* * *

The next day, Rei went to work completely exhausted, plus a little nervous to face Amakata, remembering that she’d caught him snooping through confidential documents just the previous day.

(Had that really just been yesterday? It felt like it happened weeks ago.)

He practiced several excuses for his obviously tired appearance on the train to the office, but it turned out that all of them were completely redundant.

“Did you hear?” Chigusa asked nearly the second Rei stepped through the door to the main office. “Sasabe-san is leaving!”

“Excuse me?” Rei blinked. “You mean he turned in his notice?”

Chigusa shook her head. “No, I mean he’s packing up his stuff and leaving, like, right now! Kisumi-kun is helping him with the boxes,”

With that, she scrunched up her face worriedly and hurried off with whatever task she was doing before he walked in.

Rei dropped his bag at his desk, and stared at it.

Then turned and went downstairs towards Sasabe’s filing office.

As Chigusa had said, Kisumi was there with Sasabe, carrying boxes out into the trunk of Sasabe’s tiny car. Rei picked up the last box, greeting them both in the car park, in front of the open trunk.

“Ah… Sasabe-san, if you don’t mind me asking…” Rei placed the final box carefully into Sasabe’s car. “Why the sudden leave?”

Sasabe sighed, and scratched the back of his neck. “It’s hard to explain right now, but…” he turned to look at the big, grey block of an office building. “This place, it ain’t right for me. Not anymore. Maybe it hasn’t been for a while.”

Both Rei and Kisumi were quiet, also looking towards the building. Under the white expanse of the sky, it hulked, like a sleeping beast.

“We’re sad to see you go, Sasabe-san,” Kisumi said, and he sounded like he meant it. “You… God, you’ve been working here longer than any of us. Even Ama-sama,”

“That’s not always a good thing, I’ve found out recently,” Sasabe turned back to them. “Things have changed.”

The corners of Kisumi’s eyes were tilted downwards in something like sadness. He clapped Sasabe on the shoulder. “It’s gonna be weird without you, old man,” Kisumi smiled. “You better invite me to your retirement party, got it? Or your funeral, whichever comes first.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get back to work, kid.” Sasabe grumbled, but waved to Kisumi as he went back inside the office.

“Kisumi-san is right,” Rei told him, only somewhat awkwardly. “We… we’re going to miss you. It’ll be… odd.”

Sasabe faced him properly, and Rei was startled by the sharpness in his gaze. “Rei,” he began. “You’re investigating Rockhopper, aren’t you?”

Rei inhaled violently and choked on it, coughing as he processed Sasabe’s words. “I… you…”

“Breathe, kid.” Sasabe thumped him on the back. “I’m not gonna report ya.”

“Sasabe-san,” Rei gasped. “I swear—!”

“Listen,” Sasabe glanced to the office doors behind Rei’s back. “I’ve been working at this place for  _ donkey’s _ years. Management comes, management goes, everything they don’t want looked at too closely gets put in my old store room.”

Rei finally caught his breath, staring at him.

“This place’s been corrupt, very corrupt, for a while,” Sasabe continued. “I couldn’t tell you for how long, or how deep it goes, but I wouldn’t trust anything that comes out of this company, got that? I’m just sorry I can’t help y… heya, Miho!”

Rei turned to see Amakata emerging from the building behind him. She was holding a small box, and a little, sad smile.

“Hi, Goro-san. These are just a few borrowed things I’ve been meaning to give back,” she sighed, and gently placed the box snug between the others in the car. “It’s gonna be that bit gloomier around this place, with you gone.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. Life goes on, and all that,” Sasabe shut his trunk. “Just don’t forget to invite me to the office parties, alright?”

“I have a feeling you’d show up even if we  _ didn’t _ send an invite.”

“Aw, Miho, you know me too well…”

Sensing a somewhat personal interaction, Rei began backing out of the conversation, saying his farewells. Sasabe caught his eye and smiled. Rei nodded back.

The office was quieter, in Sasabe’s absence.

* * *

That night, Gou called and informed Rei that her source was willing to meet him and Nagisa the next evening.

“Like I said before, she’s shy, okay?” Gou said. “Be nice to her.”

Rei blinked. “Of course.”

“I was more talking to Nagisa-kun,” she replied. “Is he there? Put me on speaker for a sec.”

Rei hummed, and obliged, gesturing for Nagisa (who was frowning at the ground, deep in thought, probably trying to figure out how to drink more maple syrup without being caught) to listen.

“Nagisa-kun,  _ no _ teasing my informant, got that? No pestering, no dirty jokes, no ‘-chan’ if you can at all help it, got it? If you do, I’ll kill Rei-kun.”

Nagisa sighed, defeated for the second time in two days. “Aye-aye, Gou-chan.”

“Why are you killing  _ me?” _ Rei squawked over Gou’s “ _ Call me Kou!” _

“Beca-ause I can’t kill Nagisa-kun, we need him for information. You’re the next best thing,”

“Wow, thank you.”

They finished up the call with a goodbye and another promise from Nagisa to be polite to the informant.

Call ended and phone in pocket, Rei turned, and realized.

“I forgot to ask her about the shorthand on the note!”

Nagisa laughed evilly from across the kitchen. “Rei-cha-an, how could you forget?!”

“Should I call her back?”

“We're gonna see her tomorrow, aren't we?” Nagisa leaned upwards on his toes and stretched, arms above his head, as if he actually had muscles. “Anywa-ay, Rei-chan, there's something I was thinking of trying out.”

“...And that is?” Rei was wary.

“Hm, you know how I figured out before that I still have my touch memories?” Nagisa didn’t bother waiting for an answer before ploughing on. “Well, I have robot memories and not human memories, which means I can remember everything perfectly.”

“What’s your point?”

In what felt like a second, Nagisa crossed the kitchen and… was hugging Rei. Around the middle. Warm.

“Um! Nagisa-san?” Rei clenched and unclenched his fists, staring straight ahead.

“Hmph,” was Nagisa’s reply, muffled into Rei’s clothes. There was no real breath there, but Rei shivered anyway.

“What are you doing?” At this, Nagisa pulled away, squinting in thought as he stared at Rei.

“That’s called a hug, Rei-chan.” Nagisa said at last. “How tall are you?”

“One hundred and eighty-one centimetres,” Rei replied, baffled. “Why?”

Nagisa frowned, staring at the ceiling. “That would mean…”

“Nagisa-san, can you please explain to me what you’re doing?”

“My memories are exact,” Nagisa said, tapping his temple. “That me-eans I can take my memory of hugging you, just there, and compare it to the memory of hugging my creator.”

Rei stared at him. He was… pretty impressed, actually. “How does this help us, though? Unless your creator is  _ abnormally _ tall,”

“I just wanted to see if I could do it.” Nagisa shrugged. “Anyway, they’re definitely on the tall side, like you.”

“Do you want us to go out and interrogate every tall person we see?”

“Actually, Rei-chan—”

“No.”

* * *

“So, what does Rei-chan do with his free time?” Nagisa asked after he’d finished huffing about how he  _ wasn’t actually going to go out and assault every tall person he saw. _

“Recently, not much.” Rei sat down on the couch next to where Nagisa was sprawled. “Researching corporate conspiracy theories takes a lot of time.”

“How are you even still alive?” Nagisa scrambled up and stared at him. “You don’t watch any TV shows? No video games?”

“Not really.”

“Rei-cha-an!” Nagisa slung himself across Rei’s lap, one arm thrown mournfully over his eyes. “The more you talk, the more depressed I feel for you!”

“What do  _ you _ do with your free time?!” Rei pushed Nagisa away, and he rolled onto the floor, still looking like his pet goldfish had just been thrown into a blender.

_ “I  _ have an excuse!” Nagisa sat up and glared at him. “You  _ know _ if I’d been out in the world this whole time I would’ve pet a giraffe by now or—something equally interesting!”

“You can’t just go to a zoo and ask to pet the giraffes!”

“How do you know that’s what I was gonna do?!”

“I can tell!”

Nagisa stood on his knees and leaned towards Rei, fuming. “You're missing the point! Alright, what did Rei-chan do for fun in college?”

“I studied…” Rei hesitated, and Nagisa's disbelieving frown deepened. “And I'd go out for the occasional drink with Rin-kun and Sousuke-kun.”

“There it is!” Nagisa cheered, throwing himself forward onto Rei's lap. “That's what we should do! Go out for drinks!”

“Nagisa-san, you don't have any ID.”

“I don't need any! Here, I'll just—” Nagisa pulled his brows downward and said in a comically deep voice, “There. See? I'm manly.”

Rei pressed the back of his hand to his mouth and snickered into it. “You couldn't sound  _ more  _ like a teenager.”

“I'm not! I'm an adult!” Ironically, Nagisa pouted.

“How old are you, exactly?”

“I'm… uh…” Nagisa blinked. “You said it was November? I'm about… three years old, technically.”

“You're about seventeen years removed, there, Nagisa-san.”

“No! That's not fair! I'm  _ mentally _ an adult!”

“You sure act like one,”

Nagisa flopped backwards onto the floor, starfished in agony. “Rei-chan is so  _ mean!” _

“We're not going out to a bar.” Rei crossed his arms and leaned back on the couch in his best show of authority.

“Okay, what did  _ high-school _ Rei-chan do, then?” Nagisa lifted his head.

“Study.”

_ “And?” _

“Study.” Rei pushed his glasses up, flustered. “And… I used to run track.”

In an instant, Nagisa was sitting up, staring at Rei like he'd just revealed the most thrilling plot twist of his life. “Wha-a-at?! Rei-chan! You're an athlete?!”

“Was. I  _ was _ an athlete.” Rei corrected.

“Why'd you give it up? It'd be a great skill to have if you're ever running from the police!”

“Is that the first place your mind always goes? Crime?” Rei gripped the couch cushion next to him in a way he hoped was subtle. “To answer your question. The reason I started track was because of an unhealthy… fixation of mine. I quit in an attempt to separate myself from those thoughts.”

Of course, Nagisa was the nosiest person, robot, on the planet. "Hm? Fixation?"

“Back in my high school days, I had a, ah,  _ thing  _ for beauty and perfection. It was something that may have at one point verged on  _ obsession,” _ Rei could actually feel his voice and grammar becoming tighter with discomfort. He wanted to move on from this topic.

Nagisa observed him with huge, luminous eyes, blinking slowly. Rei felt himself squirming unattractively underneath that headlights-stare.

Rei was reminded, with stomach-flattening suddenness, that Nagisa was a computer. That he was a lot smarter than he looked.

“...Hm.” Nagisa balanced his elbow on his leg and his cheek on his hand, squinting up at Rei. “Is that what beauty is to Rei-chan?”

Rei shuffled back a bit, looking away. “What’s  _ that _ supposed to mean?”

“Perfection. Is perfection beauty to Rei-chan?” There wasn’t any malice behind those words, and if there was, Nagisa hid it well.

Rei’s throat seemed to squeeze and then lock itself in that position. “I… I, don’t…” his voice came out reedy, and his fists clenched.

Before he could panic or close off or whatever he was prepared to do, a circle of warmth appeared around his calf. Rei jumped and looked down to see Nagisa’s hand wrapped around his leg.

Nagisa’s brows were pulled together and Nagisa squeezed his calf, unnatural-coloured eyes darkened in… concern.

“You don’t have to answer, Rei-chan,” Nagisa said, and wasn’t  _ that _ strange, to hear a voice so room-filling and unstoppable go soft, humming like that.

Rei swallowed, and it was like drinking wet sand. “I did,” he said hoarsely, and it felt like a confession.  _ Imperfection is ugly. Fix your every fault and flaw until you are beautiful. _

Nagisa let go of his leg, and there was a band of cold there where his skin mourned the warmth. Nagisa hefted himself up onto the couch beside Rei.

“Rei-chan should stop thinkin’ like that,” Nagisa leaned in and flicked Rei’s nose, to Rei’s indignant squawking. “I can tell! I can tell you’re not over it!”

“I’m trying!”

Nagsia huffed, and flopped onto his side against the couch, still facing Rei. “There’s no such thing as a perfect android, you know that?”

“That’s not… true.” Rei faced him back.

“It is! Listen, I can’t remember exactly what he said because this happened  _ ages _ ago, bu-ut, one time I was talking to Sei-chan about something-something the amount of coding behind robots, and you know what he told me?” Nagisa paused for dramatic effect. “He said that there’s always a kink in the code somewhere. There’s  _ so much _ coding in an android, and sometimes the glitches are obvious, like them not turning on at all, and sometimes they’re, like,  _ really _ obscure. Something very specific has to happen for the bug to show itself.

“And us androids are meant to be the flawless version of humans! It’s not fair for you guys to expect yourselves to be perfect when I bet there’s not even one computer that’s coded faultlessly.”

Nagisa’s eyes were bright and clear under the dim, warm overhead light of the sitting room, and Rei suspected that if he had lungs, he would be panting passionately right now. The room suddenly seemed very humid.

Rei cleared his throat.

“So what you’re saying is… nobody’s perfect.”

Nagisa groaned and threw himself backwards, limp on the couch with his feet in Rei’s lap. “So rude of you, Rei-chan, I was trying to be motivational! That was a beautiful speech! I even used the thesaurus in my head!”

“Aren’t you grouping yourself into the ‘imperfect’ category? Very modest, Nagisa-san.”

Nagisa stuck his tongue out at the ceiling. “Well,  _ duh, _ Rei-chan, I’ve got a memory like a slice of Swiss cheese and I can barely do math even though my brain is a computer. I’m no pinnacle of human creation,”

Rei frowned. His gut tugged oddly and he wanted to point out that it wasn’t any fault of  _ Nagisa’s  _ that he couldn’t remember anything, but Nagisa spoke up again before he could.

“Anyway, call me Nagisa _ -kun! _ We’re friends!”

“When did  _ that _ happen?” Rei blinked at him.

“Right now, I decided. You could also call me Nagisa _ -chan, _ if that’s what you prefer,” Nagisa stroked his chin thoughtfully.

Rei shuddered visibly. “I’d prefer not to, Nagisa… Nagisa-kun.”

Somehow, Nagisa ended up yelling happily into Rei’s collarbone, dislodging his glasses and hurting his ears. Rei sighed and patted Nagisa’s back.

They ended up watching a movie on Rei’s phone. Against Rei’s will, Nagisa pulled up an illegal streaming site with copious amounts of half-naked women strewn along the screen.

“Nagisa-kun, where did you even learn about these websites?”

“Gou-chan showed them to me!” Nagisa chirped, squishing himself into Rei’s side despite there being plenty of room on the couch. “Also, Rei-chan should get adblock on his phone.”

“I wouldn’t need adblock if you weren’t relentlessly trying to install malware on it!” Rei crossed his arms as Nagisa blew a raspberry at him.

“Anywa-ay, what should we watch?” Nagisa held up the phone, scrolling through movie lists. “Oh, what’s  _ Ring _ about?”

“Nagisa-kun, no—!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why. why do Rei and Nagisa talk _so much_.
> 
> next chapter _should_ be the last one before Part 2 begins, buuut it's starting to look like a bit of a monster so I might have to split it up.
> 
> there are only 2 characters from _dive to the future_ that are gonna appear in this fic. the first you guys already know (cos i couldn't very well include Momo and Seijuro w/o my girl Isuzu) and the second... we'll meet soon enough.
> 
> next chapter: a brief mix-up of the status quo. we meet Gou's informant.

**Author's Note:**

> boys, i am so excited for this fic, you would not even believe. i have eight pages of scribbled flow charts and mind-maps where i was just worldbuilding and working out the (absolute mess of a) plot.
> 
> most characters from seasons 1 & 2 will show up in this at some point. they're all gonna be relevant to the plot, trust me.
> 
> i don't wanna say much more for fear of giving myself away, but my tumblr is @brightwritesstuff if u wanna talk ;)


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